Book Reviews

EASTER FAITH AND HISTORY Daniel P. Fuller. Tyndale. 279 pp. 21s. No doctrine is more central in the Christian faith that the resurrec­ tion of Jesus from the dead and no question more vital than that of its historicity. A critical analysis of modern theological attitudes to the resurrection and its historicity from the classical viewpoint of evangelical scholarship is accordingly not merely a pious but also a necessary service to the Church of Jesus Christ. This is what Dr. Fuller provides in the book before us. His survey of the theological fluctuations of the past two hundred years is excellently conceived and ably executed. This is the sort of contribution to the assessment and understanding of the thought-forms of modern times which is needed in each generation, and needed in particular from scholars who place themselves under the Word of God. The tension that bas developed between faith on the one hand and the historical method on the other relates to the question whether the authenticity of the resurrection is dependent on the pronouncements of the historical experts or whether the ordinary Christian may continue to rely on the biblical witness to the Easter event. The problem posed itself for Gottbold Lessing in the eighteenth century, who maintained that, even if the historicity of the resurrection were granted, it would be but an accidental fact of history, and that to argue from an accidental truth to a necessary truth would involve an illegitimate confusion of categories. The postulation of this gap between accidental truths of history and necessary truths of reason, described by Lessing as an 'ugly ditch' which he could not cross, forms both the starting point and in general the reference point of Dr. Fuller's study. He shows how with Kant, whose religion of practical reason demanded a radical disjunction between faith and history and who regarded miracles as a hindrance to reason, Lessing's ditch became a chasm; and how Strauss, Scbleier­ macber, Hegel, Ritsche, Schweitzer, and others in the liberal school, with all their distinctive emphases, ranged themselves on the same side of the ugly ditch. An important section of the book is devoted to the debate between Barth and Bultmann. The revelational objectivity of the former only apparently clashes head on with the existential subjectivity of the latter. The situation is summed up by Dr. Fuller as follows: 'Butt­ mann is saying, in effect, that the "ugly ditch" between history and faith remains, and that revelation must bypass history in order to become acceptable to men. With Barth, on the other band, the control for revelation lies so completely with the God who reveals himself that revelation does not become any fixed datum of history but, rather, takes place only when God chooses to reveal himself. The Bible functions only to witness to this revelation that can always 39 40 THE CHURCHMAN occur, and its meaning is to be understood in terms of this revelation, and not vice versa. Consequently, though Barth asserts that revelation has taken place in history, it is not controlled by history, that is, by the biblical record of the past, but by revelation itself. Thus he is saying, in effect, that revelation cannot be conveyed by history but must come directly to a man from God. Barth, therefore, takes his place with Lessing on the revelation side of the ditch' {p. 110). A chapter on the New Quest of the Historical Jesus explains how the authority of Jesus is found by Kasemann in the teaching of Jesus, by Fuchs in his behaviour, and by Bornkamm in a combination of both words and deeds; while James Robinson has put his trust in the new concept of historiography, as existentially comprehended, allied with the techniques of form criticism, to conduct him to the end of the quest. In Dr. Fuller's judgment, 'all he does is come up with a Jesus who talks suspiciously like a modern existentialist of the early Heidegger type' (p. 135). More consistent is Hermann Diem, in the Barthian camp, with his affirmation of the historical Jesus as unique and risen. But on his (Barthian) premisses he is able only to indicate that Christianity does not have to be a myth. The event of the resurrection is regarded as inaccessible to historical verification, and thus the whole matter is left in suspense. But, as Dr. Fuller observes, 'it is the question of whether Jesus rose from the dead or not that determines whether he really is a living Saviour or whether Christianity is just wishful thinking' (p. 140); and he concludes that the New Quest fails to bridge Lessing's ugly ditch since it requires Easter faith to stand without any support in history (p. 141). Von Campenhausen has attempted to resolve the recurrent tension between faith and the historical method by contending that historical considerations can actually open the door to faith; but his position is so ambivalent that it still leaves the ditch unbridged. An ambiguous Easter history that may be explained either naturally or supernaturally leaves one with an Easter faith which is neither hindered nor helped by history. The case has hardly been advanced. Gerhard Koch and Richard Niebuhr have sought to take the apostolic witness to the resurrection more seriously, but none the less have naturalised the event, and have ended up leaving Easter faith virtually independent of historical reason. In Wolfhart Pannenberg the swing away from Bultmannian subjectivism has reached its furtherest point. He affirms the historicity of the resurrection without equivocation and maintains that faith is actually based on this event which is also historically verifiable. Dr. Fuller questions, however, whether Pannenberg has succeeded in bridging the ditch; for Pannenberg rejects the concept of any specifically redemptive history (Heilsgeschichte) and denies the supernatural enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. This carries the implication that any and all history is in and of itself revelation. Althaus, accordingly, has accused Pannenberg of dismissing the Holy Spirit from the scene. The final section of the book is devoted to the historiography of St. Luke as displayed in the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. Dr. Fuller is rather less sure in his handling of this section; none the less the principle on which he proceeds is a sound one. Acts BOOK REVIEWS 41 is the continuation of the Gospel, and the two works together constitute a unity. 'The basic theme of all Acts', in Dr. Fuller's judgment, 'is the work that Jesus continued to do as the risen and ascended Christ' (p. 220); and again: 'Luke's purpose in writing Acts was ... to show that the Gentile mission was the fulfilment of the Christ event as brought to a climax in the resurrection and the ascension' (p. 223). Luke, in fact, 'argued for the resurrection of Jesus by pointing to a subsequent historical event that could not be explained without it' (p. 230); and Luke's argument for the resurrection of Jesus 'shows that it is just as impossible to deny his resurrection as it is to deny the existence of Julius Caesar. How can the historical fact of Christianity's mission to the Gentiles and its origin in Judaism be explained', asks Dr. Fuller, 'unless we include the resurrection of Christ? Apart from Christ's resurrection, these two historical facts remain an absolute riddle, for how could the Jews of that day admit Gentiles to a place of equal standing apart from supernatural interven­ tion? To try to explain this without reference to the resurrection is as hopeless as trying to explain Roman history without reference to Julius Caesar' (pp. 258f.). Luke, indeed, succeeded where Pannenberg fails. It is true that, 'for Luke, revelation is to be found in history, but history itself is not sufficient to produce faith'. Faith results only from the special inward working of the Holy Spirit which enables one to recognise and acknowledge the persuasiveness of the historical evidence (p. 237). This is the solution, available all along, to the problem of bridging Lessing's ugly ditch. We are grateful to Dr. Fuller for this important and fascinating volume. PHILIP E. HUGHES A COMMENTARY ON THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS C. K. Barrett. A. & C. Black. 410 pp. 45s. The present volume is to all intents and purposes the second in a projected trilogy in this series from the distinguished pen of Dr. C. K. Barrett. The first volume, on Romans, has already appeared, and the third, on 2 Corinthians, now remains to be completed-'surely', Dr. Barrett says in his preface, 'the most difficult book in the New Testa­ ment'. 'I believe,' he adds, 'that the church in our generation needs to rediscover the apostolic Gospel; and for this it needs the J;pistle to the Romans. It needs also to rediscover the relation between this Gospel and its order, discipline, worship, and ethics; and for this it needs the First Epistle to the Corinthians. If it makes these discoveries, it may well find itself broken; and this may turn out to be the meaning of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians'. Needless to say, the publication of this commentary on 2 Corinthians will be eagerly awaited. Dr. Barrett's scholarship is as unforced as it is genuine. There is no window-dressing to cheapen it. Its simplicity is that of sincerity. His terse and economical use of language achieves to a remarkable degree the plainness of comment which is his aim. There are times indeed when one finds his method rather too clinical; I, for one, would have welcomed the extension of this volume by another hundred 42 THE CHURCHMAN pages. There is but one main complaint-presumably in large measure occasioned by the moderate size of this work-namely, that the exegesis is inadequately related to the contemporary situation in the Church. It is true that Dr. Barrett recognises that 1 Corinthians 'has the great value of showing theology at work, theology being used as it was intended to be used, in the criticism and establishing of persons, institutions, practices, and ideas' (p. 26); but the modem reader will surely be disappointed at not finding more guidance than is given as to how to apply these lessons from the first century to the world in which he lives today. How, for example, does Paul's discus­ sion of the problems connected with the eating of food that had previously been sacrificed to idols relate to our twentieth century? The dilemma resulting from the relationship between the stronger brother and the weaker brother in the Church is a perennial one, though the circumstances by which it is occasioned change from age to age. And what does 1 Corinthians 12: 14 have to say to us about the pente­ costalism and the reflorescence, if that is what it is, of the charismatic gifts in our time? There are, inevitably, a number of queries concerning points of interpretation. A few instances must suffice. What evidence is there for asserting that 'though Paul was critical of the gnostic move­ ment he nevertheless shared many of its views', and indeed 'held substantially gnostic opinions' (p. 189)? Would it not be juster to say, not merely with reference to 'the language of mutual knowledge between God and man' (ch. 8: 3) but in general of language that is 'gnostic in formulation', that 'it is the language alone that Paul borrows from gnostic sources' (p. 191)? When Paul says, 'I buffet my body ... lest, when I have preached to others, I should myself prove to be rejected' (ch. 9: 27), is the con­ clusion that he 'clearly envisages the possibility that, not withstanding his work as a preacher, he may himself fall from grace and be rejected' (p. 218) really defensible in view of the Apostle's repeated teaching to the contrary? It is true that this passage, taken by itself, appears to lend itself to the interpretation that Dr. Barrett places on it. Its language, however, is that of the athletic contests, and its purpose, surely, is to emphasise the answerability of the Christian for the intensity of his commitment to the contest-comparable in its im­ plications to the admonitory building metaphor of ch. 3: llf. Paul's consistent position here and elsewhere is that the salvation of the Christian, inasmuch as it is the work of God, is a work that cannot fail (cf. Rom. 8: 29£.; Phil. 1: 6). One must confess to uneasiness about Dr. Barrett's apparent willingness to entertain the assumption, based on the omission of any mention of the empty tomb inch. 15: 3f., that the story of the empty tomb was a late construction. Even though the gospel accounts of the empty tomb may have been written at a date later than the com­ position of 1 Corinthians, what ground can there be other than subjective prejudgment for the decision that they represent a later tradition than that of the epistle (p. 339)? To be fair, Dr. Barrett does not commit himself to this conclusion; but what is at stake in this type of speculation is the integrity and authenticity of the New Testament and, by the BOOK REVIEWS 43 same token, the classical acknowledgment of its canonicity for the Church. Dr. Barrett's decision in favour of the integrity of 1 Corinthians carries much more conviction: 'no partition theory in regard to 1 Corinthians seems more probable', he writes, 'than that Paul simply wrote the letter through, beginning with chapter I and finishing with chapter XVI' {p. 15). Despite one's occasional reservations, the great worth of thiscommen~ tary is evident throughout its length. The following quotations will serve as samples of the good things it contains. On preaching (1: 17): 'Paul represents himself as a preacher, not as an orator. Preaching is the proclamation of the cross; it is the cross that is the source of its power' (p. 49). On the scandal and folly of the cross (1: 24): 'Religious egocentricity will inevitably find Christ crucified ... , the theme of Christian preaching, a scandal (something that trips men up), for in the cross God does precisely the opposite of what he is expected to do; the intellectual egocentricity of wisdom-seeking Gentiles finds the same theme jolly, because incarnation, crystallised in crucifixion, means not that man has speculated his way up to God but that God has come down to man where man is' (p. 55). On wisdom {1: 30): 'True wisdom is not to be found in eloquence, or in gnostic speculation about the being of God; it is found in God's plan for the redemption of the world' {p. 60). On the 'natural' man (2: 14): 'The natural man is most easily defined negatively: he is a man who has not received the Holy Spirit' (p. 77). On the law (9: 21): 'The law, given by God, was holy, righteous, and good, a precious gift, in no way contrary to God's gracious promises, but consistent with them, and able to keep a well~intentioned man in the way of life. It expressed man's depen­ dence on the goodness of his Creator, and his debt of obedience. This good gift was seized and perverted by sin, and thus became an instrument not of life but of death' (p. 213). It is to these important truths and perspectives that the Church needs to be recalled today. PHILIP E. HUGHES THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MESSAGE OF THE RESURRECTION FOR FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST W. Marxsen, U. Wikkens, G. Delling, H. G. Geyer, Edited with an Introduction by C. F. D. Moule. SCM. 142 pp. 18s. No. 8 in the Second Series of Studies in Biblical Theology consists of four papers prepared in the Theological Commission of the [German] Evangelical Union Church, with an introduction drawing attention to recent English studies on the same subject. The main study is that of Professor Marxsen of Munster. Professor Wilckens of Berlin, Professor Delling of Halle, and Professor Geyer of Wuppertall add their comments. Marxsen's conclusion is that the resurrection is not historical, that we are forbidden to affirm that it is, and that it is not the datum of faith. The datum of faith regarding what we call the resurrection is expressed as follows: the eschaton (the final age) was present in Jesus; the kerygma reaches me now with the eschaton; therefore Jesus is alive now; therefore we may say that Jesus is risen. Marxsen reaches this conclusion by first dismissing the empty tomb as (even if THE CHURCHMAN correctly reported) an ambiguous and therefore irrelevant event; then by asserting that the appearances led to the reflection that Jesus had risen. (This was a legitimate inference for them, in their limited knowledge, but illegitimate for us.) Marxsen's error is to assume that the appearances were nothing but apparitions. He dissociates them from the empty tomb (whereas the NT links them with it) and allows nothing to anything that the risen Jesus may have said or done. Of course, Jesus' predictions of his resurrection are allowed no weight at all. Wilckens likewise argues that the appearance of Jesus had nothing to do with the empty tomb, and that the disciples merely inferred, from the appearances, that Jesus must have risen from the dead, since they accepted the current Jewish notion of resurrection. Wilckens has to assume (why?) that 'Paul himself obviously had no accurate knowledge about Jesus' grave, nor of the finding of the empty tomb'. He also assumes (why?) that the appearance of Jesus to the witnesses of 1 Cor. 15: 5-7 was of exactly the same kind as that described by Paul in Gal. 1: 15. It is not surprising that Wilckens clears the ground for himself by first defining the resurrection of Jesus (i.e. that event without which, he agrees, there could be no faith in Jesus Christ) in terms which do not require a rising from the dead at all! Delling criticises Wilcken' s view that there was a gap between the (Hellenistic) tradition of appearances and the (Jerusalem) tradition of an empty tomb, though he himself assumes a similar kind of gap between Paul and Luke when he asserts dogmatically that Luke's statements about the risen Jesus in 24: 39b and 24: 41-43 'would certainly not have been acceptable to Paul'. Delling does, however, insist that 'the tradition of the empty tomb clearly exists from the very first alongside that of the appearances'. He also opposes Wilckens' view that the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb was an inference drawn from the general Jewish notion of resurrection. Marxsen's sort of scholarship is too clever by half. His suppositions are sub­ stituted for the apostolic Gospel itself. Is the apostolic testimony to the resurrection of Jesus so difficult to elucidate? Are so many questions really raised by modern philosophy? Professor Moule's introduction putting again the case for taking the evidence for the empty tomb at its face value (and analysing the issues as they appear among English-speaking writers) is a welcome relief after so much tortuous and constricting German scholarship. D. W. B. ROBINSON WRITINGS IN TIME OF WAR Teilhard de Chardin, translated by Rene Hague. Collins. 315 pp. 30s. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN: A GUIDE TO HIS THOUGHT Emile Rideau, translated by Rene Hague. Collins. 672 pp. 70s. Writings in time of War groups together thirteen essays written by Teilhard de Chardin between 1916 and 1919, during his time in the French army. They add little or nothing to our total knowledge of Teilhard's thought, for everything that he wrote in these early essays BOOK REVIEWS 45 he repeated more fully in later works. Nevertheless these writings are interesting as showing how early he arrived at his basic ideas. These essays are often closer in their expression to traditional Catholicism than are Teilhard's later writings, but they also show particularly clearly his fundamental inspiration, the combination of Catholicism and Pantheism which he hoped to reconcile by means of the theory of evolution, by expounding 'the great unexplored Mystery wherein the life of Christ mingles with the life-blood of evolution' (p. 57). The flood of books about Teilhard de Chardin, most of them of little value, shows no sign of abating. In Teilhard de Chardin: a Guide to his Thought, however, we have a translation of one of the most important books for the serious student of Teilhard. Rideau's book, first published in France in 1965, is an analysis of Teilhard's system under the headings of the phenomenology of history, cosmology, anthropology, theology and spirituality, by a Jesuit philosopher who knew Teilhard personally. Rideau's chapters form a useful summary of Teilhard's ideas, but the greatest value of his book lies in the notes, which occupy 381 pages, compared with the 278 pages of the text. These notes are invaluable, for they consist almost exclusively of quotations from Teilhard's works, often from little-known and as yet unpublished writings. Rideau is not an uncritical admirer of Teilhard. He admits, for instance, that Teilhard did not take sin sufficiently seriously, and hence had no adequate conception of man's alienation from God and his consequent need of redemption and spiritual rebirth. He admits also that Teilhard's view of history as a groping but steady progress towards the unification of the world in a single super-organism inspired by Christ differs from the biblical picture of world history, and that Teilhard paid insufficient attention to biblical teaching. But though Rideau is prepared to criticise Teilhard on these and other points, his judgment of him remains essentially favourable. He does not realise that Teilhard's world, a world which moves by a gradual and groping evolution from imperfection towards goodness, a world of which evil is a necessary feature so long as evolution has not reached its term, is not merely different from the world revealed in the Bible but is directly opposed to it. Christians who base their beliefs on the Bible are not likely to be sympathetic to Teilhard's theories, but they cannot afford to neglect them. The reason for the popularity of Teilhard's works is not far to seek. They represent a consistent transposition of Christianity into evolutionary terms, for Teilhard saw that the theory of evolution cannot be accepted as true without making it necessary to rethink the whole of Christian doctrine in its light. The success of his works in a world where evolution is almost universally taught as a proven truth is not surprising; it results from the lack of credibility of com­ promise solutions which accept, say, an evolutionary origin for the human body while hoping to leave the essentials of the Christian faith unchanged. Teilhard's belief in evolution was absolute, but his writings make it clear that this belief was not essentially based on scientific evidence, but was rather a philosophical or even a religious creed. It may be hoped that the radical nature of the conclusions to which this creed led Teilhard de Chardin will prompt those Christians 46 THE CHURCHMAN who accord a facile acceptance to evolutionism to think again. In any case Rideau's book will long remain an essential tool for those who wish to come to grips with Teilhard's evolutionary Christianity. RICHARD ACWORTH THE RACE WAR Ronald Segal. Pelican. 458 pp. 7s. 6d. VERWOERD Alexander Hepple. Pelican. 253 pp. 6s. The title of Mr. Segal's book may seem alarmist but he produces compelling evidence that such a calamity is certainly possible. His diagnosis of the causes of modern racial strife lays the blame squarely on the western world's exploitation of colonies. There is, of course, truth in this although the Christian cannot accept it as a full explana­ tion. The value of Mr. Segal's book lies partly in the passionate, rather hectoring, style which well expresses the frustration and despair felt by many of the underprivileged. It is an emotional book and produces an urgent desire for action. Unhappily he offers little in the way of solutions, other than the standard liberal appeal for tolerance and understanding which is good but hardly seems likely to remove hate any more than it did in the 1930s. The Christian must say that both diagnosis and treatment are superficial and that the real cause of hate is sin and its only certain cure, the Cross of Christ. This is not pietism or escapism. For the testimony of the early church, set in a world of divisions as sharp as any we face today, was that Christ 'is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility'. If the Church does not proclaim the Gospel as the very practical answer to the race problem it has indeed lost its savour. Mr. Segal's book adds a new urgency to the task. It also contains plenty of valuable background details which may dispel prejudice and lead to informed discussion. For Mr. Segal the situation in South Africa is really a blown up picture of what is likely to happen elsewhere in the world. But it is also the theatre of a calculated attempt to solve the tension between races by separating them. The driving force behind apartheid has been the Broederbond. In his biography of Verwoerd, its outstanding genius, Mr. Hepple has written an absorbing and well-documented account of the growth and power of this body. It is said to have been 'born out of a deep conviction that the Afrikaaner nation was put in this land by God and is destined to continue in existence as a nation with its own nature and calling'. This conviction of one Christian nation moving towards a divinely appointed end is a theory which is bound to seem attractive to some readers of the Old Testament. The South African government produces persuasive apologetic for its policies and these need to be judged on their own terms before we reject them out of hand. All the same, this book leaves the impression that the real motive behind apartheid is fear which has produced a sort of kraal mentality and that this dwarfs the ideal of 'one nation under God'. One cannot ignore the fact that one group is treating another as less than human on the sole ground of difference in race. Brunner's BOOK REVIEWS 47 approach to the concept of justice seems helpful here. While admitting that men have many inequalities which must be recognised, he main­ tained that their equalities are of far greater significance; that all are created in the image of God and all share the responsibility to subdue the earth. The theory of apartheid is based on false premises since it assumes that the inequalities between men are greater than their equalities. Mr. Hepple, one time leader of the Labour Party in the South African Parliament, writes admiringly of Dr. Verwoerd as a person, inspite of his obviously intense dislike of all that he stood for. He was an attractive and highly intelligent man, the outstanding leader of the Broederbond and chief architect of apartheid. As an intellectual he approached his country's problems with a cool and ruthless detach­ ment unencumbered by pity. Mr. Hepple judges him to have been sick rather than evil with a mind 'obsessed with race prejudice'. It may be that Mr. Hepple was too closely involved with the events in Verwoerd's life to write an altogether balanced biography but he does back his judgment with plenty of evidence. T. E. C. HOARE THE MAKING OF A KING: THE EARLY YEARS OF jAMES VI AND I Caroline Bingham. Collins. 224 pp. 36s. JAMES I David Mathew. Eyre & Spottiswoode. 354 pp. 63s. The most serious defect of both books is that they do not take account of the research of Professor Donaldson. This was published in 1965 in Scotland: james V-James VII, and offers a number of new interpretations of James VI and his Scotland, based on detailed and exacting research. To take no account of this work is like trying to write a history of Tudor England without mentioning G. R. Elton. Mrs. Bingham's book is described on the blurb as making brilliant use of original sources. A quick comparison of her bibliography of original manuscripts and books with that provided by Donaldson is not to Mrs. Bingham's advantage. Her book is a useful compilation of information about the first seventeen years of James' life, but it adds nothing of consequence to our knowledge of either Scotland or James. Occasional quotations in sixteenth century Scots and French do not add scholarly distinction to the book. In fact they are only annoying, especially when no glossary is provided. On p. 100 for instance we read 'felon fair above and fow fals in onder'. This kind of thing seems rather pointless in a book presumably designed for popular consumption. Are readers expected to rush off to the nearest library to translate such a phrase? Archbishop Mathew's book is one of anew series on English monarchs. The two other volumes which have appeared (Douglas on William the Conqueror and Scarisbrick on Henry VIII) are very distinguished pieces of research which are substantial and well-written biographies that illuminate both the subject and their period. This volume is curiously old-fashioned in its approach and tells us very little about James that is not to be found in D. H. Willson's biography. At times James gets lost altogether in Mathew's interest in his courtiers and 48 THE CHURCHMAN the furnishings of Jacobean country houses. The result is a rather disconnected study, elegantly written, but containing little biographical information, or analysis of James' personality and policies. Reading this book, one would find it hard to realise that James solved several important problems left by Elizabeth and gave Scotland the most stable and prosperous government it had ever known. Even if he failed to solve the financial problems of England or was outmanouvered by the English Commons, he did at least achieve peace with Spain, pacified Ireland and the more turbulent parts of Scotland and brought the churches of England and Scotland a measure of peace and unity. Almost nothing is said about Scotland after James left for London, despite the very real progress that continued to be made there by James' deputies. No comparison is given between James' manage­ ment of the Scottish legislative bodies and his difficulties with the English equivalents. Likewise it would have been valuable to have had a comparison of economic growth in the two kingdoms which took account of the substantial body of economic history on this reign. One might have expected that a modem biographer of James would have paid more attention to the relations between Court and City, the pattern of administration and the problems of foreign policy. The problems of James' son in law in Bohemia and the Palatinate rate three pages, the Jacobean palace nearly eight. Serious students of James will continue to rely on Willson and Donaldson. IAN BREWARD SUNDAY WiUy Rordorf. SCM. 336 pp. 55s. Those familiar with the writings of Oscar Cullmann will find con­ siderable similarity here-the same immaculate thoroughness, the same ruthless pursuit of a particular position, the same concern for contemporary relevance. This is not surprising: Cullman had him for a colleague. But the parallel could be continued. Many have found a certain imbalance in the writings of Cullmann: the same may prove to be the case with Professor Rordorf. The book is, as its name and number of pages suggest, a profound and detailed study of the day of worship and rest in the first centuries of the church's existence. It is exceedingly well documented and very readable. Professor Rordorf is concerned with two main issues: Sunday as a day of rest, and Sunday as a day of worship. He argues that Jesus effectively demolished the sabbath commandment by his healings on that day, which were deliberate and provocative. This is a conclusion which is far from certain: insufficient consideration is given to other explanations of Jesus's sabbath activity. Abstention from work on Sunday, (which replaced the Jewish sabbath) was he argues, not a requirement for Christians. Did not Paul argue for the indifference of days and their observance? Did not Ignatius warn against keeping sabbath like the Jews? Indeed, Sunday as a day of rest was not regularised until the accession of Constantine. This part of the book is in strong conflict with the examinations of the evidence (admittedly tantalisingly fragmentary) by Wilfred Stott in his doctoral dissertation on Sunday and C. W. Dugmore in his Influence of the BOOK REVIEWS 49 Synagogue upon the Divine Office. Even the Epistle of Barnabas, which represents one of the extremes of Christian anti-Jewish writing in the first century or so, and maintains that circumcision and the food laws were never intended to be kept literally, knows that with the Decalogue it was different 'the Lord himself gave it to us'. No doubt some Christians were indifferent to it, but the presence of the sabbath command in the very heart of the Decalogue had great weight with the ordinary Christian. There is evidence right through to the Apostolic Constitutions and beyond that they did abstain from work on the Lord's day. On this point the LDOS is not so far astray from primitive practice as Dr. Rordorf would imply! The second half of the book is concerned with Sunday as a day of worship. Rordorf finds the origin of Christian observance of Sunday (in addition to Saturday, to begin with) in the Eucharist, or rather, in the appearance of the risen Lord on Easter Day as they ate with him. His conclusion is, accordingly, that whereas Sunday can well be Sunday without being a day of rest, Sunday ceases to be the Lord's day in the strict sense if the Eucharist is not celebrated! This con­ clusion, which comes somewhat strangely from a Protestant, is the outcome of his seeking the origin of Sunday not in the Lord's resurrec­ tion itself (Christ's re-creating of mankind displacing even the day which commemorated God's creation) but in a resurrection appearance at the cultic meal on that day. It is clear that the last word has not been said on this subject, and we may not agree with all Professor Rordorf's conclusions; but he has unquestionably produced a magisterial collection of the evidence. Whether one tests him with an obscure reference in Origen's Homily on Numbers or deep in the Apostolic Constitutions-he has considered it all. Unless, therefore new dis­ coveries fill some of the gaps in our knowledge of early Christian practice about Sunday, his book will remain the indispensable source book for all informed discussion of the subject for a very long time to come. E. M. B. GREEN THE MORMONS Robert Mullen. W. H. Allen. xvi & 316 pp. 30s. The blurb on the cover of this book says it 'fully answers all questions that have ever been asked about Mormonism'. This is a most out­ rageous claim for a book which, although backed by considerable research, ducks most questions a non-Mormon would want to ask. It is a straightforward, sympathetic, and even naive, history of the spread of Mormonism from the days of Joseph Smith until now. It is told by a non-Mormon but exhibits a credulity which would be surprising even in a Mormon. The whole is one glorious American success story, from the opening words ('Among the Mormons, all is well!) to the closing descriptions of a world-wide scene of happy faces, building projects, booming statistics and general prosperity. But a reviewer must ask some of the questions which the book does not answer: 1. Is the whole caboodle true? Both the contents of the Book of Mormon and the story of its origins need careful sifting for historical truth. If they are true they can stand up to any amount of criticism, and it is sad to see so little awareness of the sober accusa- 50 THE CHURCHMAN tions, based on good evidence, which can be brought against the stories. If they are not true, then no amount of 'success' will make them any more plausible. One would like to know the author's opinion on this -if be thinks the stories untrue, why is be so sympathetic? And if be thinks them true, why is he not a Mormon? Or is it that he just does not know the range of biblical, archaeological, historical and logical materials which are fatal to the claims of Mormonism? 2. Why do Mormons pay lip-service to the Bible, but ignore its contents? This reviewer spent years as a curate trying to get Mormon missionaries to answer simple questions about the contents of the Bible, but found them to know less than an Anglican layman in his twenties. 3. Why is Mormonism 'successful'? We need a study of the psychology of conversion to Mormonism-and the part played in this by the mis­ sionaries' deprecation of the Churches, verbal sleight of band, flattery of the old nature and masculine charm. 4. Why does Mormonism not allow negroes to be priests (p. 280)? Does this mean a racial classifica­ tion of all members? What is its origin in revelation? And what is its connection with right-wing American psychology? The particular beliefs of Mormonism (e.g. tritheism, literal anthro­ pomorthism, the apostolate, the priesthoods, justification by belonging to the show and being good, etc.) need careful scrutiny as one reads such a book as this. Otherwise let the reader beware. For himself the reviewer would state categorically that even if-per impossibik­ he could be brought to acknowledge Joseph Smith as a prophet and the Book of Mormon as the Word of God, he would become, not a Utah Mormon, but a member of the Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This is an altogether more attractive organisation, with good historical claims to the succession from Smith, but, as one might expect, it never gets a mention in the text of the book, though it does appear in an appendix note on p. 292. Granted all these reservations, the book still makes fascinating reading, and there is nothing comparable in print on this side of the Atlantic. But, oh, why not deal with the real questions? C. 0. BUCHANAN JESUS AND THE CHRISTIAN WiUiam Manson. James Clarke. 236 pp. 30s. In an introduction to this volume Professor T. F. Torrance tells us that William Manson's contribution to New Testament studies far exceeded what had been published before his death in 1958. This is a collection of fourteen studies: six on the Ministry of Jesus; three on the Christian life; and five on eschatology and mission in the New Testament. Some are reprints from journals. But the majority represent material from previously unpublished manuscripts, some of which belong to the period of Manson's last years. The essays vary considerably in quality, and some stand head and shoulders above the rest. One of the very best is a study on Gospel ethics and the Sermon on the Mount, and in effect involves some excellent linguistic analysis. The imperatives of Jesus, Manson urges, occur not only in commands, but also in assertions of various types. He insists, 'Jesus in the Beatitudes is characterising and pronouncing as blessed not those BOOK REVIEWS 51 who possess antecedent ... qualities of character, but those who exhibit certain responses or reactions when the Gospel ... is presented to them' (p. 53). He also offers some penetrating comments on the early Ministry of Jesus in Mark, stressing the consistent wholeness of the Markan pattern (cf. his criticisms of Wrede, pp. 47-48). In other essays, in this first part, he examines the purpose of the parables, the relationship between history and the Son of Man, and some of the New Testament language about principalities and powers. There is little that is startlingly new in the middle section of the book. In spite of Professor Torrence's comments, the essays on Romans hardly outshine what has been written by Anders Nygren, or by C. K. Barrett and Franz Leenhardt. A long essay on the Christian life usefully collects together data from New Testament sources, and expounds them in terms of their own distinctiveness themes. But the third part argues some important theses. One such is the 'the 'Ey(t) EL(J.t does not mean "I am the Christ", but "the Christ is come"' (p. 177); making this an allusion not to Messianic imposters, but to notions that the Parousia had arrived before the end. Some extravagant claims on the dust jacket of this book leave difficulties which hardly any writer could be expected to overcome. Inevitably they will lead to many readers being disappointed, and overstatements such as these tend to make competent work seem dull and poor by comparison with what they seem to offer. Even Manson's best essay, his seven pages on the Gospel ethic, hardly 'surpasses anything that has yet been given by a New Testament scholar'. This might have been true before we had C. H. Dodd's Gospel and Law, and the combined writings of Joachim Jeremias. There is also a repetitious overlapping among the first group of essays which might well have been weeded out before the book went to press. But all these essays, as Professor Torrance notes, reflect a refreshing combination of sanity and reverence. They well express Manson's concern to let the New Testament speak for itself. A. C. THISELTON RECORD OF THE FULFILMENT: THE NEW TESTAMENT Wilfred]. Harrington. Chapman. xii and 533 pp. 60s. This completes Fr. Harrington's trilogy, the earlier members of which are Record of Revelation: The Bible, and Record of Promise: The Old Testament. The book thus marks the completion of a monu­ mental labour. The author tells us that he aimed in the first instance at serving 4:he needs 'both of seminarians and of interested layfolk'. The reception of the first two volumes emboldens him to think that this third book may be of help 'to pastoral clergy and to Sisters engaged in religious education'. This forecast is likely to be vindicated. Fr. Harrington begins with a section on the history of New Testament times in which he includes both a brief account of secular history and the chief events in the history of the Church. He proceeds to the formation of the Synoptic Gospels and then to the books of the New Testament. This is not to be understood as a volume full of new insights. Fr. Harrington is not a profound or original thinker. But he has given us a very useful summary. His background to the New 52 THE CHURCHMAN Testament puts in a very clear and easy form the information needed to place the New Testament in its context. His style is lucid, and the maps and outlines he uses so freely help to make the argument very clear. Now and then opinions are expressed which obviously come from a Roman provenance, as when we are told that Peter 'made decisions, presided over, and governed the infant Church' (p. 45). Again some­ times judgments are made rather too easily as in his account of the differences between the 'Hebrews' and 'Hellenists' in Acts 6: 1. There is little indication of the intricacy of the question. Interestingly for a Roman Catholic Harrington sees the Synoptists and the Fourth Gospel as in conflict over the date of the Last Supper (he accepts the Jobannine date), and over the length of Jesus' ministry (again be opts for John). As might be expected, Fr. Harrington pays a good deal of attention to the Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels, issued by the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1964. Indeed his section on 'The Formation of the Synoptic Gospels' is by way of being a commentary on the Instruction. At the head of each new subsection Fr. Harrington quotes a section from the document, as though he were expounding a text. Within this framework be feels quite free, but he does not wander beyond it. He has a very complicated solution of the Synoptic Problem, with different Greek versions of an original Aramaic Matthew behind our present Synoptics {apparently each bas its own Greek version), and various strands of oral tradition. There are also different Greek versions of the source common to Matthew and Luke. I did not find this discussion very illuminating. Form criticism is weighed and found wanting, though some lasting values are discerned. The Fourth Gospel is seen as 'substantially' the work of the Apostle John, though its present form is due to disciples who carried on his work, the Jobannine Epistles are due to the Apostle with the help of the secretary, while at present there is no solution to the problem of the authorship of Revelation. All told this in an invaluable book for those who want an ordered conspectus of modern Roman Catholic thought on the New Testament. It is a very useful summary covering a very wide range. Any who teach the New Testament will profit from it. LEON MORRIS 2 PETER AND JUDE Michael Green. Tyndale. 192 pp. 13s. 6d. This is another example of the Tyndale Commentaries which are winning golden opinions for their clarity, usefulness and convenience. Michael Green is well qualified by his scholarship and spiritual insight to keep up the standard, and this he bas done. At first sight 2 Peter and Jude do not look like very exciting books to comment on, but the editor bas got a great deal out of them. The reviewer found himself quite caught up in two rather out of the way New Testament letters, letters which he must admit to have used chiefly as a quarry for Confirmation texts-'Make your calling and election sure'. 'Keep yourselves in the love of God' and 'Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling.' It is impossible here to comment in detail on the exposition, but it can be said to be very careful, exact in scholarship, BOOK REVIEWS 53 honest in presenting alternative explanations, and always on the look­ out for points of pastoral importance, while the temptation to preach sermons is resisted. The reviewer was interested to see that Green does not hesitate to draw parallels between the 'false teachers' criticised in 2 Peter and Jude and certain well-known exponents of South Bank religion. The one big point which must be mentioned is the editor's belief that these two epistles can with reasonable confidence be assigned to the writers whose name they bear. Certainly he brings forward striking literary and theological evidence which liberal scholars have possibly overlooked or forgotten. It is really difficult for those of us who have been schooled in the pseudepigrapka tradition honestly to face the question, but it is very good for us to have to do so. The real hurdles to get over, however, (and I cannot feel that Green has quite done it) is the question whether these letters, with their com­ plicated and elaborate Greek styles, with their unusual vocabulary, and their Septuagint quotations, could have come from the pens of Galilean fishermen or carpenters. If one starts from a firm conviction that this is so, a case can be made out, and no one will do it better than Michael Green, but if one starts with 'a clean sheet' the case for 'the late anti-gnostic pamphlet' seems more convincing. RONALD LEICESTER RELIGION BY RADIO Melville Dinwiddie. Allen & Unwin. 136 pp. 25s. Dr. Melville Dinwiddie, a minister of the Church of Scotland and now Senior Magistrate of Edinburgh, was for 2S years Director and Controller of the BBC in Scotland. He was appointed to this post by Lord Reith, who contributes a characteristic Foreword. His book begins with a historical survey of religious broadcasting from the moment when Archbishop Randall Davidson was 'entirely amazed' by the first broadcast he heard to the current diet of 12 hours a week on radio and television. Next comes a series of chapters in which he discusses the different forms which religious broadcasting has taken -worship, prayer, praise, preaching, teaching and evangelism. Dr. Dinwiddie has some interesting things to say about both opposition and censorship. At first, the very idea of broadcasting services of worship seemed to church leaders irreverent: they 'might even be heard by persons in public houses with their hats on', and would certainly result in diminished church attendance. When they became accepted, non-Christian sects like Christian Scientists, Spiritualists and Jehovah's Witnesses applied for broadcasting time but were refused. When after the war controversial discussions began, the policy was that 'they would not wound the feelings of reasonable people, nor transgress the bounds of courtesy and good taste'. We have travelled a long way since those days. Recently BBC producers have 'appeared to include anything that would startle, disturb and embarrass'. The change of policy is clear. From an accepted responsibility as 'trustee for the national interest' to lead public opinion in standards of decency and quality, the Corporation's criterion now is 'to follow rather than lead, reflecting trends and opinions proclaimed by the most vocal section of the public'. Yet radical 54 THE CHURCHMAN thinkers still refer to the BBC as 'Auntie'! Dick Sheppard once referred to broadcasting as 'perhaps the greatest instrument for conversion ever placed in the hands of man in the whole history of Christendom'. The report Towards the Conversion of England (1945) asserted that 'the true task of religious radio is missionary and evan­ gelistic'. Yet in his Foreword Lord Reith describes religion by radio as 'probably relatively the most ineffectual or anyhow the most inefficient ... of all the sectional activities of broadcasting'. He goes on to explain that the ineffectiveness is due in his opinion not to the transmission but to the 'follow-up of the transmission at the reception end'. If the churches had realised the opportunity which broadcasting offers, he says, there might have been 'a national revival on a scale hitherto unimagined'. One wonders, however, if the reception alone is to blame. Contemporary broadcasting reflects the mood of the contemporary church, with its selfconscious, adolescent uncertainties. The typical radio or television discussion is inten­ tionally opened-ended. This may be good broadcasting technique; it can never be satisfactory as a form of evangelism. J. R. W. STOTT

CREATIVE EVANGELISM: TOWARDS A NEW CHRISTIAN ENCOUNTER WITH AFRICA Harry Sawyerr. Lutterworth. 183 pp. 37s. 6d. This new book by the Professor of Theology in Fourah Bay College is both relevant and welcome. Canon Sawyerr writes out of a deep personal concern for his subject, and with a refreshing absence of resentment against the white missionary. He describes a number of African interpretations of existence, and shows how many of these, for example the concept of kinship, provide an area of communication for the Gospel. At the same time he is fully aware of the differences involved. On this basis he proposes, on a pleasingly biblical basis and with a stress on the importance of the incarnation, elements of a 'sound doctrinal teaching' for the African Church. Probably the most exciting part of this work, as it is the most original, will prove to be the last. Here Professor Sawyerr grapples with a 'fresh liturgical approach', and comes out firmly (and strangely, for one so biblically oriented) in favour of a Christian ministry and worship which are unequivocally sacerdotal; and this because the role of the priest is 'clearly evident in all the African cultic rites' (p. 155). Finally he suggests the shape for a new eucharistic liturgy relevant to the African situation (pp. 151£.), which in fact differs very little from the 1662 order, with dashes of 1928. The whole book is fascinatingly illustrated, incidentally, with a wealth of reference to those cultic rites, mostly drawn inevitably from West Africa. For all the interest of this admittedly exploratory study, certain reservations remain. The author's approval of prayers for the dead, for example, rests on flimsy biblical evidence (pp. 94£.). He opts for a frankly sacrificial interpretation of the eucharist simply on the basis of Gregory Dix's understanding of &vrX[LVlJcrLc;; (pp. 140f.). And he appeals to an Anglican book of devotion to support his plea for a 'priestly' ministry (p. 142). Professor Sawyerr has opened up important lines of investigation. But his statement needs to be taken BOOK REVIEWS 55 still further, theologically and liturgically, if real communication is to be established between the African enquirer and a fully biblical Christianity. STEPHEN SMALLEY THE WIND OF THE SPIRIT ] ames S. Stewart. Hodders. 191 pp. 25s. The sports commentator of the Observer commenting recently on Matt Busby's success as Manager of Manchester United, very per­ ceptively remarked that Matt Busby has what all great preachers have had-the capacity for enabling others to believe. The greatest tribute I can pay to James Stewart's book The Wind of the Spirit is to say that he does precisely that for me. When I read these sermons I feel my own faith kindling under the warmth of his. There are sixteen sermons in all and, unlike some of their genre, they actually read like sermons. I find myself in the church and amongst the congregation being addressed personally and pointedly as a seeker, as a believer, as a man with a problem, or simply as a member of stricken humanity. I content myself with three quotations which I hope will encourage you to read the whole book. The first is the introduction to the sermon 'Fools for Christ's Sake' on the walking on the water (Matt. 14: 28, 29) page 57-'Here is a story from the life of Jesus which the early Church preserved as being immensely relevant to its own storm-tossed existence. Was Christ really master of the vast, elemental forces of secularism and unbelief that flooded the world and threatened to sweep the Church away?' The second is from 'Beyond Disillusionment to Faith' on 'The mirage shall become a pool' (Is. 35: 7) page 79-'I remember once near Interlaken waiting for days to see the Jungfrau which was hidden in mists. They told me it was there, and I should have been a fool to doubt their word for those who told me lived there and they knew. Then one day the mists were gone and the whole great mountain stood revealed. Next day the mists were back, but now I had seen, and knew myself that it was true.' The third is from 'Christ and the City' on the text 'He beheld the city, and wept over it' (Luke 19: 41) page 87-'Amid the Palm Sunday shouts and hosannas Jesus heard a deeper undertone, the funeral knell of the city that had thought it was immortal. He saw the rains descending and the floods coming and the winds blowing and beating upon that house built on the sand of national pride; and it fell, and great was the fall of it. He wept for the impermanence of earthly glory.' Over and over again in such phrases and illustrations Dr. Stewart holds a dagger at the heart of our modern scepticisms, chal­ lenges the faintheartedness of the Church and shows up our materialistic orthodoxies-Marxist and Western-for what they are-shallow, ineffective, banal philosophies of life. I emerge from this book with a heightened sense of the splendour and coherence and relevance of the Christian faith. The preacher has done his work-he has enabled me to believe. STUART LIVERPOOL THE GOD WHO IS THERE Francis Schaeffer. Hodders. 191 pp. 15s. The Christian should not be interested only in presenting a nicely 56 THE CHURCHMAN balanced system on its own but rather in something which has constant contact with the questions being asked by his own generation. With this conviction Dr. Schaeffer embarks on an orthodox evangelical equivalent of Paul Tillich's method of correlation. He analyses the intellectual and cultural climate of the second half of the twentieth century in terms of a despairing division between an 'upper storey' dealing with significance or meaning divorced from verification by the world of facts, the 'lower storey'. This dichotomy is traced through the fields of philosophy, art, music and general culture. The 'new theology' with its emphasis on faith as a.n existential leap in the dark is seen as conformity to this thought-world of despair. Dr. Schaeffer is convinced that historic Christianity (i.e. evangelical orthodoxy) is attested as true by the way in which the Scriptures, accepted as God's propositional communication to mankind, fit on to man's incomplete natural knowledge like the missing pages of a torn book, unintelligible in its mutilated state. There is no leap of faith because the pieces match up in a coherent whole; yet man could not autonomously understand his situation on the basis of the ripped volume without the divine revelation. Using this analysis, Dr. Schaeffer presents a programme of pre-evangelism, Christian apologetic and Christian embodiment of truth in community, a programme already tested in the 'L'Abri' fellowship in Switzerland. In a survey of this scope, comparable to the Catholic Maritain's 'The Peasant of the Garonne', there are naturally many points at which one wants to say 'Yes, Dr. Schaeffer, but .. .'; the significant thing is that one is left not with a mere impression of unanswered questions but with a desire to continue talking with an evangelical of such enquiring and wide-ranging mind. M. H. CRESSEY NATO AND EUROPE Andre Beaujre. Faber. 141 pp. 28s. General Beaufre has held several important posts in Nato. He writes as a French patriot and in a forceful military manner which provides an amusing account of the clashing personalities of Mont­ gomery and De Lattre in the early days of Nato. He regards the Atlantic Alliance as indispensable for the security of the west but argues that it should be composed of the twin powers of America and Europe rather than of America and an American-dominated Europe. The discipline of staffing the command of an international army has engraved on the General's mind the lesson King Alfred learnt in his battles against the Danes, that people will only fight enthusiastically for causes close to their hearts. He points out that European unity cannot become a reality until Europeans share a mutual interest in the welfare of the whole of Europe but that at present this total European view is very rare. Believing that nothing unites like the threat of conquest, the General considers that European unity is more likely to start in the realm of defence than economics. Recent history seems to prove him right. But even in the realm of defence, allied action is not always easy to effect. The example the General gives of the use of nuclear weapons shows very clearly that the nations of Europe are not yet likely to surrender their sovereignty. National sovereignty BOOK REVIEWS 57 seems bound to be a major topic of political debate in the next decade and it will be especially problematical for Anglicans who support the concept of Royal Supremacy. Article 37 states that the Queen 'hath chief power in this Realm ... of all Estates ... whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil . . .' and that none should be '. . . subject to auy foreign Jurisdiction'. But the restoration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the growing economic interdependence of nations today have given these words a rather hollow ring. It is time for us to re­ examine our ideals of national sovereignty and General Beaufre's book is as good a place to start as any. T. E. t. HOARE SCIENCE, SPIRIT, SUPERSTITION-A NEW ENQUIRY INTO HUMAN THOUGHT Constantin BrunMr. Abridged and translated by Abraham Suhl. Revised and edited by Walter Bernard. Allen & Unwin. 585 pp. 80s. This massive volume has something of everything it is-as a philosophy, a kind of 'philosophy of the history of philosophy'. All the great names and systems are here, as the author, after the manner of Hegel weaves them in a synoptic all-embracing viewpoint. In a sentence-it is a philosophy of motion. Motion is the key to every­ thing that is or can be. Motion is change of juxtaposition; the flux of Heraclitus, the becoming of Plato, the unmoved mover of Aristotle; the One of Plotinus; the God of Spinoza; the Absolute of Hegel. The only one missing is Bergson's tHan vital. All things dissolve into motion, the more we seek to know them. This is so of science for which things are energy. It is so of thinking, for things are thoughts. 'Thinking thinks the thingly.' Spinoza comes to life again in a modern idiom, interpreted in the light of what we have learned since he con­ ceived of God as infinite substance with infinite attributes. For Brunner, Religion is nothing but superstition. Man is incurably egoistic. He devises religion, law and morals to feed his egoism. His only salvation is to know that this is so, and cultivate universal toleration, what he calls, spiritual modification. It appears then we are merely the flotsam of a 'valueless' and meaningless flux-which just is, and is all that there is. How we can recognise and 'modify' our ego or express indignation over ignorance, weakness or wickedness, he does not make plain. Yet his criticism of much conventional religion and morality is at times very powerful. Man's blindness and hypocrisy and 'inhumanity to man' know no bounds. He is the only animal capable of self-contemplation and self-deception. Truly man without a personal supreme and loving God is without hope. There is no salvation in Brunner's One. A. V. McCALLIN THE HISTORY OF THE SALVATION ARMY VoLUME 5, 1904-1914 A. R. Wiggins. Nelson. 319 pp. 35s. The International Congress of the Salvation Army, which was held in London in 1914, was the crushing answer to Professor Huxley's gibes about 'Corybantic Christianity'. During the previous decade 'assaults' had been made on a further twenty-two countries. The 58 THE CHURCHMAN first Staff Training College had been opened in Clapton. The Army's ranks continued to swell, while fresh social projects were pioneered. Although the days of persecution were not entirely over, the work and example of the Salvationists had won them worldwide recognition. Authorities treated them as allies and their leaders were honoured by the elite of society. King Haakon VII of Norway took a personal interest in their affairs, as did also King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, the latter attending incognito William Booth's public memorial service at Olympia. The prophets of doom, who forecast the disintegration of the movement after the General's death, were confounded. Not until then was it fully realised how much of the brilliant organisation of the Army was the work of the new General, the former Chief of Staff, Bramwell Booth. Even at this late date the figure of William Booth towers over all else. To find him embarking on exhausting campaigns in an open motorcar at the age of eighty makes humbling reading. So, too, is his courageous acceptance of blindness at the end of his life. There is a revealing interview about his brand of social concern; the Fabian approach is pithily summed up -'Socialism is a celestial system without a celestial people' (p. 292). In only one section of the book are we given an insight into the General's inner conflicts (pp. 158-160). To his son Bramwell he writes, 'The fact is that any occasion or recreation or anything else is a torture to me unless leading up to some useful end'. Unfortunately the presenta­ tion is disappointing. The author states his fear that much may read 'as drily as a company chairman's minutes' (p. xiii), and it does. Nor does 'the romance of the Army's history' bring much relief. The book is a hotch-potch of information, repetitive to the point of extra­ ordinary carelessness (e.g. pp. 200-201). Of the thinking and policy, of the effect of success and acceptance, of the significance of disputes within the movement, there is scarcely a hint. What could have been so instructive is just dull. J. W. CHARLEY THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. Wallace I. Matson. OUP 254 pp. 16s. This is a paperback reprint of a book first published in 1965. In it Professor Matson discusses arguments for the existence of God, from mystic to pragmatic, and takes in the 'traditional arguments' and the problem of evil along the way. He concludes, gently enough, that God does not exist. Among the book's virtues is a willingness to consider and discuss arguments on their merits, the deploying of some good arguments, and a clear and attractive style. One thing that Matson shows, en passant, is that a consideration of the existence of God can make a good beginning to philosophy. However, the dis­ appointing feature of the book is that the author often considers implausible versions of the arguments he refutes. This is no doubt due to pressure of space but is also accounted for, I think, by the fact that Matson totally neglects contemporary discussion of these problems. This shows most markedly in his treatment of the ontological argument, and his rather summary dismissal of the 'free will defence'. The task the author has set himself is one that most Christians will not have a great deal of time for, though they should (of course) applaud a valid BOOK REVIEWS 59 argument when they see one. Are they mistaken in taking this attitude? Take Matson's treatment of the problem of evil; one of his premises uses the notion of 'an omnipotent benevolent being'. Yet the Christian theist's attitude to the problem of evil can only be understood if one takes account of Christian revelation; he does not recognise Matson's problem as the problem of evil. As far as apologetics is concerned perhaps the Christian should be less bothered to prove theism (and hence be little worried when it cannot be proved) than to display the coherence of his faith overall; instead of trying to prove that God necessarily exists, showing the role that the notion of 'necessary being' plays in the faith. This approach will lead to the charge of irrationalism ('x is coherent' does not entail 'x is true') but this may nevertheless prove more fruitful than the pursuit of an ever­ receding 'rational' belief. I noticed two printing errors; 'proposer' instead of 'purposer' on p. 93, and a typographical mix-up at the bottom of p. 206. PAUL HELM ERIC GRAHAM 1888-1964 R. T. Holtby. OUP. 160 pp. 18s. Eric Graham was brought up an 'Evangelical', the author tells us and though he attended St. Aldates in his Oxford student days, he had by the end of them become a High Churchman. He was Vice­ Principal of Salisbury Theological College, a chaplain during World War I, and then Dean of Oriel College, Oxford. Probably his major work was done as Principal of Cuddesdon College from 1928 to 1943. There he was consulted by many bishops, got on well (rather sur­ prisingly) with so different a figure as Hensley Henson, but fell out with Headlam. Headlam disliked theological colleges anyway, and thought Cuddeson Tractarian and partisan. Graham replied that he was proud it was Tractarian, but this was not partisan (!), and then added 'I look upon Liberal Catholicism as something which combines the value of Evangelicalism and Catholicism' (p. 55). Such a comment shows Graham's ignorance of Evangelicalism, very like that of the Tractarians themselves. From Cuddeson Graham moved to the episcopalian backwater in Scotland where he became bishop of Brechin. There his true theological outlook became more apparent and the truth of Headlam's earlier charge seems to have been proved. Graham opposed CSI, and fell in with the usual Episcopalian highhanded line on Presbyterians. One admires the honesty with which he expressed his views, e.g., to the Dundee Presbytery (pp. 105f.) when declining to take part in a Wishart commemoration service, but his views do alas reflect a sectarian theology of which his biographer-son-in-law does not seem to disapprove. The book records the life and labours of a godly, industrious but somewhat narrow minded and not very important ecclesiastical personage. G. E. DUFFIELD THE EARLY CHURCH Henry Chadwick. Penguin. 304 pp. 7s. 6d. The Pelican History of the Church is brought within one volume of completion by this splendid contribution from the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. It displays all the qualities of meticulous scholar- 60 THE CHURCHMAN ship, judicious balance and limpid prose that we have come to expect from its author. It is a fairly straightforward account of the first six centuries, with the occasional glimpse of later developments such as the monothelite and iconoclastic controversies. It inevitably challenges comparison with two other recent single-volume introduc­ tions, J. G. Davies' The Early Christian Church and W. H. C. Freud's The Early Church. Apart from variations in the period covered (Davies starts earliest of the three, Chadwick extends further than the others} and in arrangement of material (Davies is distinctive here), the prize for presenting the assured results of modem study of the early Church with cautious thoroughness and accuracy must fall to the work under review. It purveys a remarkable amount of infor­ mation, and though its coverage is not uniformly even (e.g. Clement and Origen receive generous treatment, Cyprian very little), it avoids being marked as much as Freud's account by one expert's dominant themes, however attractive these might be. It is solid without being heavy, erudite without forgetting the needs of the beginner (though the discussion of Plotinus and Porphyry should have connected them explicitly with Neoplatonism, which appears subsequently without being introduced). Only rarely does the demand for compression produce a lack of clarity (e.g., pp. 113f., on the exchange between the two Dionysii}. The section on the Liturgy is perhaps unduly technical, but the same chapter contains a brief treatment of music in the early Church, an unusual feature in such a volume. It is gratifying that the cheapest history of the Church of the Fathers should be a work of such a high standard. D. F. WRIGHT CHRISTY Catherine Marshall. Peter Davies. 495 pp. 35s. Catherine Marshall, widow of Peter Marshall whose sermons she made into one of the great American books of the 'fifties, turns to fiction with real success. Her heroine and narrator, Christy Huddle­ ston, is a nineteen year old North Carolinian who volunteers for a Presbyterian mission among the mountain people of the Great Smokies in 1912. She finds a backward, isolated but very virile people who still retain much of their eighteenth century Scottish ways ('vow and declare' is a typical expletive). Their lives are incredibly hard and primitive, and blood feuds disrupt the closeknit community scattered among the valleys and hillsides. The book has a few of a first novel's weaknesses: a contrived situation now and again, or a passage inserted to get 'the message' across; a dropped stitch or two. But the story is good, the climax sustained and the characters genuine: the quiet, strong willed Quaker woman with deep faith and an unexpected background; the young parson unsure of his vocation, the agnostic doctor descended from the dan chief who brought the pioneers from Scotland; and a variety of mountain folk and their children. Christy herself comes completely alive as her rough experiences transform her from a callow do-gooder into a warm, human, compassionate Christian. Catherine Marshall clearly understands the mountain background, human and geographical. The book can be enjoyed whether or not BOOK REVIEWS 61 the reader has been to the Smokies; indeed the tourist to the modem national park may find difficulty in imagining that its now well ordered beauties once hid the violence and disease, the ignorance and the aspirations described in these pages. Mrs. Marshall also has a deep understanding of the ways of God. The 'Christian' novel is a difficult genre. This one may become a classic. JOHN POLLOCK NEW DIRECTIONS IN ANGLICAN THEOLOGY: A SURVEY FROM TEMPLE TO RoBINSON Robert J. Page. Mowbrays. 208 pp. 21s. If you want to see Anglican theology from 1939 to 1964 written up as a shabby-genteel success story ('maybe they don't hit the ball, but see how well they play their strokes'), this is the book for you. Perhaps in some qualified sense it really was a success story, and I am too oafish to see it; but I must confess I find Dr. Page's urbanity in face of the numb fumblings of some modem divines rather ghastly. Yet he is a sensitive observer, and the interest and skill in trend-spotting which are the hallmarks of American theological scholarship are fully in evidence in his report on work done. He sees the period as a time of increasingly acute theological indigestion, culminating in the pained eructations of the radicals and their call for emetics all round. Evangelical theology during this period is not referred to: was there any? Dr. Page regards the pressure of the questions which Honest to God so strikingly failed to solve as due in part to neglect of natural theology (by which term, be it noted, he means, not natural theology, but the theology of nature and apologetics). He recognises something of the apologetic and dogmatic significance of Bishop Ian Ramsey's work on the logic of Christian language, though not, perhaps, the whole of it. He also recognises that one decisive event of the past quarter­ century has been the final failure of the claim that the Tractarian view of episcopacy is the standard Anglican position: such a claim, if made to-day, is a bluff that can be effectively called by referring to pp. 82-90. The report ranges widely through matters liturgical, ecumenical, moral and ministerial, as well as biblical and doctrinal, in the manner of a travelogue rather than a tractate on geography. Apart from David Nineham on p. 185 and Index, and 'bizzare features' on p. 138, I found no bizarre features. J. I. PACKER THE MOVING IMAGE, SCIENCE AND RELIGION, TIME AND ETERNITY G. D. Yarnold. Allen & Unwin. 234 pp. 37s.6d. The interest of this rather difficult book lies in its attempt to grapple with the enormous themes hinted at in its sub-title. The author is unusually competent to do so, being both a research scientist and a theologian. One of his main convictions is that time, which he defines as the subjective apprehension of change, must, since the propounding of the theory of relativity, no longer be seen as a universal characteristic of the external world. On the other hand eternity, which he conceives of qualitatively as God's time, must be thought of in terms of timelessness. The implications of this position for the incarnation, the resurrection and heaven are obvious enough. If Mr. 62 THE CHURCHMAN Yarnold proves to have convinced philosophical theologians of the soundness of his position, there is no doubt that his book will become a cardinal turning point in this area. Whilst in no sense an expert in the subject, I cannot help feeling that despite the brilliant integration of science and religion in this book, and the evidence of wide reading, Mr. Yarnold does not satisfactorily explain the futurity of eternity, nor allow for the tension between the now and the then in which even the dead are involved (Rev. 6: 9). If his conclusion is true that 'in the Eternal Christ we find the true interpenetration of the temporal and the eternal . . . because the Eternal has taken up the temporal into his own being' (p. 224) what are we to make of the changed mode of existence exhibited in the risen Christ? I should like to read a review of this book by Oscar Cullmann, whose emphasis on linear time is a healthy corrective to the tendency of this very able, thought provoking and reverent volume. E. M. B. GREEN A NEW APPROACH TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. John H. Otwell. SCM Press. 196 pp. 15s. When this book was published in the United States it was entitled I will be your God, a title which, even though it was utterly uninfor­ mative, was at least not misleading. In choosing a new title one wonders why the choice fell upon one which manifestly fails to match the book. There is nothing new here. We are allowed to see the 'history of tradition' school at work, as pretty an exercise in having one's cake and eating it as ever caught the specialist imagination. The claim is that 'seeing the Hexateuch as it has been described here frees us to look in it for insights Christians could not find earlier' (p. 52). Yet we are also warned not to find any contemporary help in morality by studying the Hexateuch, for it offers us only 'the laws governing an ancient nation to which we do not belong'. Con­ sequently, where the Old Testament appears to offer law, we dismiss it as antique; where it relates miracle (the fire on Carmel) it is only a later and picturesque memory of a fiery prophet; where it is virtually silent (the Shechemite Covenant Festival) there is the all prevailing event, the key to all interpretation, the subject of most of the Psalms. The book deals in turn with the Canonical Saving history, the Deuteronomic History, Prophets, Psalms, Sagas, and ends with the question 'Is the Bible true?' Professor Otwell has a vivid style which compels the reader to go on. He has served us well in exemplifying the work of a leading school of interpretation, and even those who cannot feel persuaded that he is right might like to heed his exhortation that the Old Testament is to be 'read as a newspaper, or studied like a textbook'. J. A. MOTYER SEVEN OLD TESTAMENT FIGURES Geoffrey E. Bell. Bles. 125 pp. 8s. 6d. (paper 6s.) Our generation is uneasily realising that it has lost something of value with its increasing ignorance of the Old Testament. Mr. Bell, at one time Headmaster of Highgate School, has sought to woo us back to its reading by writing this charming little book on some of the most interesting characters in it, and the Bishop of London has chosen it as BOOK REVIEWS 63 his Lent Book. No one can possibly think of it as Lenten fare; it is too brief and simple for that. It is likely to encourage not a few to tum back to their Bibles, but it is questionable whether they will understand it any better, when they do. The neglect of the Old Testament is not due only to mental and spiritual laziness, though these play a part in it; the sophistications of modem life made the directness and simplicity of the old hard to understand and appreciate. Here we receive little help in putting ourselves into the shoes of the past. The chief reason for this is that the motivation suggested for the characters' acts is at the same time too simple and too modem. One example must suffice. To declare off-hand that God did not put Abraham to the test, when he took Isaac to sacrifice him, is to miss the real depths of the story. In a book like this the minimum of rationalisation is called for. Here the proportion is wrong. The worst example is the presentation of Dathan's being swallowed up by presumably an earth tremor as in fact a cold-blooded massacre by troops loyal to Moses. The little archaeology used has normally been wisely employed. The only slip noted is the claim that Abraham was a camel master. H. L. ELLISON ORANGEISM: A NEW HISTORICAL APPRECIATION M. W. Dewar, John Brown, S. E. Long The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, Belfast. 201 pp. 7s.6d. In this ecumenical age the Orange Order is an enigma to many. Accordingly this short historical appreciation by three of its chaplains, two Anglican and one Presbyterian, fills a long felt need. The work takes cognisance not only of Orange History but also modem critics of the movement and recent literature on the subject. There does, however, seem to be a confusion between the Apprentice Boys of Derry and the Order in the Introduction which claims that the Orange Institution exists to celebrate the events of the years 1688-91. The book shows that it has a much more important task than to be merely backward looking. Dr. Dewar deals in his own inimitable style with the House of Orange, the Plantation of Ulster and the Williamite Wars. To the Rev. John Brown has been entrusted the period dealing with the origin and development of the Order as it is today. Perhaps in many ways the third section was the most difficult to write involving, as it does, personalities and problems still with us. The Rev. S. E. Long has done a worthwhile job giving valuable insights into the Home Rule conflict. The Order continues to play a leading part as Ulster moves forward in peace and prosperity. Set for the defence of the Protestant Faith and in an age of theological confusion Grand Lodge has clearly stated where she stands. The Watchword remains, 'No Surrender'. W. MARTIN SMYTH ON THE JOB: A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE WORLD OF WORK Barry Palmer and David Durston. Falcon. 62 pp. 4s. For too long Christians, and evangelicals in particular, have ignored the problems of industry, and the application of their faith to them. It is good therefore to see the appearance of this paperback written 'for trainees, apprentices, and others at the beginning of a career in 64 THE CHURCHMAN industry'. If one accepts this limitation-that the book is written for those with little present experience, entering industry at shop-floor level,-then this is a useful booklet. One welcomes the emphasis placed on passages like Gen. 1: 28 and Col. 3: 23, 24, on getting facts straight, and on a sane approach to witness. It has its weaknesses. It tends to superficiality, as in the passages on Sunday working and trade unions. Profit is not the only purpose of right management {p. 37). Responsibility is something which God gives to all men now (p. 23, 31) rather than something which will only come with promotion. And if God reveals himself to man first as a Creator, should Christians debase the creative functions in industry by describing the task of 'technical staff like designers ... engineers . . .' as merely 'supplying the management with information'! (p. 38). There are misprints on pages 10 and 23: and one wonders if all the little drawings (including an out-of-scale spanner four times reproduced) really help. None the less the book deserves a wide circulation. One can also wish it will be followed by others at a much deeper level. H. R. M. CRAIG WHAT PRICE GLORY? Helen Morgan. Patmos Press. 128 pp. 4s. 6d. This excellent book, an absorbing dual story, and most moderately priced, is reminiscent of a similar book reviewed in these pages a short time ago entitled Not Forgetting to Sing. Helen Morgan is a pseudonym. She tells her own story which is true, and weaves into it that of Esther, which, although fiction, is true to the lives of many girls who came under Helen's influence in an unidentified land. Helen was a rebel, critical and self assertive, despising what was conventional and always knowing more than her teachers. After conversion she unwillingly offered for the Mission Field to a Society she did not like, did part of her training at a Bible College to which she hoped she would never be sent, and arrived rebellious on the field to despise her fellow missionaries. How the Lord brought her to a different frame of mind is the highlight of her story. Esther was a young native girl of twelve who was to be married to an old but wealthy drunkard. Very graphically we are given the story of her escape, of being forced into a life of prostitution and slavery, and finally returning home to find that her parents had become Christians. Both these girls at the outset of their pilgrimage were given the promise 'I am with you always'. The book tells how this promise was wonderfully fulfilled in both cases. T.G.MOHAN A WOMAN'S BOOK OF PRAYERS Rita F. Snowden. Fontana. 128 pp. 3s. 6d. Rita Snowden, a Methodist writer well known for her devotional books and articles, has put together what the publishers describe as 'a straightforward, down-to-earth prayerbook for Christian women: as wives, as mothers, as workers'. Dr. William Barclay contributes a brief foreword, and the book is in fact very much in the tradition of his own Plain Man's Book of Prayers. The prayers are expressed in colloquial idiom, adopt a free and easy style, and are closely related to the needs of everyday life. The book follows a simple pattern: a BOOK REVIEWS 65 cycle of thirty week days and five Sundays, with additional prayers for high festivals, special occasions and particular occupations. Prayers for morning and evening, and a short Bible passage from the RSV, are provided for use each day. Of its kind the material is excellent and it will undoubtedly prove helpful to many women, at least for occasional use. But whether such prayers as these will stand up to constant repetition is another matter. FRANK COLQUHOUN KINSHIP AND MARRIAGE: AN ANTIIROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE Robin Fox. Pelican. 271 pp. 6s. This Pelican original, one of the Pelican Anthropological Library, disclaims being a textbook, but is as near to being a textbook as the average man will need. For students it is likely to be a standard introduction for a number of years to come. Prospective missionaries should certainly study the chapters that deal with the type of society that they are likely to meet, so that they realise from the beginning that there is nothing specially divine or inspired about our own ways of reckoning kinship, with equality on the parlrilineal and matrilineal sides. Moralists will be interested in the full treatment of the incest problem, which the author wisely distinguishes from exogamy laws. After working through some of the standard views on the incest ban, the author concludes that there is a natural feeling against it, and that the ban on it is secondary. He does not believe that we can find the origin of the ban on sociological grounds. The points that he makes are interesting to a Christian who wants to give some meaning to natural law in relation to morality. J. STAFFORD WRIGHT LEADING MEN TO GOD: THE WAY OF PERSONAL COUNSELLING C. T. Rae. Independent Press. 110 pp. 7s. 6d. This book is a warm plea for a return by the Churches to the method of evangelism by the personal approach of the individual Christian to individuals. This personal work is one in which Mr. Rae has clearly had much experience. At a first quick reading the book appears disappointing, offering great promises of what can be achieved in this way, interspersed with many reports of men whose lives are said to have been quite transformed as the result of a brief conversation, but giving no constructive help on how to proceed. Closer study shows that in fact there is nothing superficial; Mr. Rae has put his finger on some key lessons and truths that must be learned by the personal worker. His most valuable suggestion concerns the setting up of groups in which by prayer and discussion the workers can learn to be more effective. J. K. SPENCE MY LORD OF CANTERBURY. Godfrey Turton. W. H. Allen. 367 pp. 30s. This novel dwells on the thin border line between history and fiction. Thomas Cranmer could well provide the subject for a novel. Graham Greene could deal with his doubt-tortured months in prison. Helen Waddell could make wild and tender sense out of his first strange marriage. But merely to tell the story of his life in the first person, basing it on the same authorities that one would use for writing 66 THE CHURCHMAN history, is harnessing Pegasus to the plough with a vengeance. The author has thus initially set himself a fearful task. It might still have become an interesting book if he had managed to rise to the level of his subject, or had understood him so well that Cranmer had taken charge of the narrative. But in this he has failed. Added to this, the style is flaccid and undistinguished and the attitude to life trivial and uninspiring. I fear it will not make Cranmer into a popular English or ecclesiastical hero. T. H. L. PARKER BIBLICAL DRAMA IN ENGLAND Murray Roston. Faber. 335 pp. 50s. Mr. Murray Roston takes us from the miracle plays to MacLeish's J.B. The danger of this kind of thing, especially when one juxtaposes section-headings such as 'The Handelian Compromise' and 'Shavian Wit' is that the resemblances appear more superficial than the dif­ ferences, a case of Fluellan's rivers in Macedon and Monmouth; 'there is salmons in both'. And what is one to make of criticism that gets no further than this: 'Audience and playwrights had come to expect the fall of villains, and the reward of the upright. . . . It was a feeling which had its roots in the drama of Shakespeare's predecessors'? Of course, it did-and a long way back too ! Mr. Rostin's work manifests a characteristic American thoroughness and at a certain elementary level his work will be useful for consultation. He has done all the reading and he shows that he has; but the very extent of his task prevents him from giving proper critical consideration to every area of his subject. As a result, the value of this study as criticism is very variable. His claim that in the course of his work he has sought to show that 'biblical plays attracted the dramatist in inverse proportion to the current sanctity of the Bible' is based on an oversimplification, and, in any case, it does not appear convincing from the evidence Mr. Rostin cites. ARTHUR POLLARD DEUTERONOMY AND TRADITION E. W. Nicholson. Blackwell. 145 pp. 25s. Without breaking new ground Dr. Nicholson has served the interests of the study of Deuteronomy by a readable and informed review of that general viewpoint which links Deuteronomy in its various stages of growth with the covenant-festival, and posits its origin among prophetic circles in northern Israel. He supposes that the authors fled south after 721 BC and accommodated their distinctive teaching to a Jerusalem centred programme of reformation. The book is more useful as a statement of a position than persuasive of its cogency. Notwithstanding, for example, the words 'it may be concluded' (p. 22) the preceding pages are innocent of argumentation and only give a review of specialist opinion that Urdeuteronomium consisted of cc. 5-26 and some of c. 28. The possibility that the cultus grew out of Deuteronomy rather than vice-versa is not canvassed, and one must surely query a methodology which can so assuredly pronounce on the Sitz im Leben of the book and yet pay no attention to 1. 1-5 and to the ingrained and ineradicable testimony of Mosaic authorship and origin. J. A. MOTYER BOOK REVIEWS 67 THE ORIGINS OF ENGLISH TRAGEDY ]. M. R. Margeson. Oxford. 195 pp. 42s. Broadly speaking, Elizabethan tragedy marks the confluence of two sources, the one classical-from Seneca, the other native-from the morality plays. Some scholars seek to emphasise the one at the expense of the other. Mr. Margeson is more judicious. He has chosen to attack the problem from another angle, and the result is a study of what one may call the moral and religious aspects or, to use his own words, 'a clash between human will and some superior law, which is called the will of God, the power of destiny, fortune, or simply natural law, a process of cause and effect'. Mr. Margeson brings extensive reading to his task and produces a systematic and detailed account of the development of English tragedy, culminating in special emphasis on Shakespeare and Chapman. He concludes with a re­ definition of the importance of recognition when the tragic character 'admits the necessity of what bas happened but not the worthlessness of his cause or motive, and from this source stems the value given by tragedy to the tenacity of the human will'. Altogether this book is a thorough, unpretentious and useful contribution to dramatic criticism. ARTHUR POLLARD PAUL'S CONCEPT OF INHERITANCE: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF HEILSGESHICHTE. James D. Hester. Oliver & Boyd. 128 pp. 12s. 6d. This careful and scholarly examination of the concept of inheritance as Paul understands it carries on the tradition of fine scholarship so characteristic of the Scottish Journal of Theology Occasional Papers (this is no. 14 in the series). There are 44 pages of Background Studies after which section two of the book deals with 'Paul's Concept of Inheritance' and section three 'Inheritance and its Meaning for Heils­ gescbicbte'. There is a good bibliography. The study of the inheritance laws of Jews, Greeks, and Romans with its reminder of different types of will is very useful. Dr. Hester bas engaged in a very thorough examination of the subject and put us all in his debt as a result. He is able to bring out something of the importance of this concept in Pauline thought. He has a firm grasp of the priority of the divine, of the place of Christ in Pauline thought and the place of faith. This biblical understanding informs all that he writes and the result is a very useful account of a subject which rarely has been studied in detail. Occasionally Dr. Hester's grasp of the subject he is handling scarcely seems adequate. Your present reviewer's understanding of the meaning of diatheke as 'covenant' in Gal. 3: 15 may deserve to be dismissed in a footnote. But the same cannot be said of the view of E. deW. Burton. Nor can the total ignoring of the contribution of scholars like J. B. Lightfoot and G. S. Duncan be justified. This is all the more serious in that the view that the term means 'testament' leads Hester to say of Paul's illustration, 'It is so general, in fact, that it borders on error' (p. 73). He would not have b~d ~o pass su~h strictures on the Apostle had be not adopted Lohmeyer s VIew. It.still seems that the opinion of Lightfoot, Duncan, Burton and others 1S to 68 THE CHURCHMAN be preferred. Indeed I found Hester's discussion of inheritance as such much more satisfying than that of covenant. There are serious weaknesses in the treatment of covenant. Now and then just criticism may be levelled at aspects of Dr. Hester's treatment of inheritance. Thus his treatment of the Land (i.e. of Israel) seems a trifle forced. The logic of his position seems to demand that the Land be excluded. He agrees that Paul did not accept the rabbinic view which stressed the place of Palestine, and that the apostle to the Gentiles might be expected to avoid references to it (as indeed he does). Yet Hester says, 'The Land plays a very real role in Paul's concept of Inheritance in spite of the fact that he never mentions it in his letters' (p. 82). He sees the Land as that 'where the Kingdom of God is located' (p. 83) which is not an easy concept. But such are minor blemishes, and we must be grateful for the positive contribution Dr. Hester makes. He writes clearly and has a useful facility for summarising his argument. One is rarely at a loss to understand what the author means. It is good to have this very useful study of a very important concept. LEON MORRIS INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT: AN APPROACH TO ITS PROBLEMS W. Marxsen, translated by G. Buswell. Blackwell. 284 pp. 45s. The growing practice of making German works of theology available in English is most welcome. The recent translation of the monumental Feine-Behm-Kfunmel Einleitung, for example, has been an invaluable acquisition for students of the New Testament. It is therefore unfor­ tunate that the translation of the third edition of Willi Marxsen's Introduction cannot be greeted with the same enthusiasm. The original intention of this work was to present the findings of serious scholarship on the origin and history of the New Testament documents in an uncomplicated form that was suitable for the student and pastor as well as other readers. The result is a curious blending of the highly technical and the superficial, in a 'reader' (Marxsen's own phrase) which is unlikely to commend itself to many sections of its intended readership. With much of Professor Marxsen's methodology it is impossible to quarrel. He emphasises the importance of the historico­ critical approach to the problems of the New Testament, and refuses to detach this from the discipline of New Testament theology itself. But generally speaking the end product is the older and unexciting critical mixture as before. Philippians is not a unity, Ephesians, Colossians (sic) and the Pastorals are pseudo-Pauline, 1 and 2 Peter are non-Petrine. Luke-Acts is late (c. AD 90) and not by Luke. Perhaps the Johannine literature suffers most of all, particularly because the essay on the Fourth Gospel (pp. 251-9) is out of date, and takes no account at all of the current debate about the nature of the Johannine tradition. And this criticism is widespread. So often the author seems to go his own way, with almost no reference to New Testament scholarship outside Germany and not over-much to scholarship within. One result is that the pleasingly up to date and representative biblio­ graphies of works in English which have been appended are seldom BOOK REVIEWS 69 reflected in the text, and often at odds with it. Moreover, the treat­ ment of individual areas is sometimes surprisingly brief. The complex question of the authorship and date of Luke-Acts, for example, is dealt with in eleven lines (p. 161}; and whereas Galatians is given over thirteen pages, the Fourth Gospel is dismissed in nine and Revelation in a mere four. There is finally no index of any kind. It is hard to see how this new production will benefit scholar, students or pastor, when in the work of W. G. Ktimmel, not to mention D. Guthrie, so much of greater value in this area already lies close at hand. STEPHEN SMALLEY CHURCH MUSIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Arthur Hutchings. Jenkins. 168 pp. 25s. A fascinating study of nineteenth century Church Music, ranging from the contributions of the great composers, through the choral and liturgical music on the Continent and in this country, and on to con­ gregational and popular music, written by the Professor of Music at the University of Durham. The book is interesting as a social study as well as a treatise on church music, and just as no organist can play more than a few bars without revealing in his style and selection of stops his own psychological quirks and idiosyncrasies, so it seems that no musician can write about other music-makers without laying bare his own soul-revealing the passions and prejudices picked up along the road of his own musical pilgrimage. This autobiographical element introduces us to the author's views on carol services, the population explosion, and the Missions section of the English Hymnal. He wants to dispense with the first, decimate the second, deride the third, and thus do away with them all. These and other more or less irrelevant 'tit-bits' bring a lightness of touch, though at times the Professor's own comment on some words of Liszt might be used against himself: 'What this verbiage means let him who knows tell us'. The reader who is mainly interested in English Church Music should not be daunted by the chapters covering less familiar ground, for the outline of continental church music revivals provides good background for a better understanding of trends in our own country. What emerges from the book is how much depends on the human element, and the local factor. Bruckner, for example, is defined as 'the greatest church composer of the romantic century', but is shown to be that in a quotation from Dr. H. C. Colles, as a result of his national tradition and liturgical background. Plainsong is spoken of as 'the perfect marriage of melody, words and worship, but is shown to be possible only because of the particular local monastic conditions of daily devotion which produce it at this level of perfection. English music for cathedrals, parish churches and the free churches is set in its social context, and it is clear that clerical neglect or devotion, instrumental absence or availability, religious revivals and liturgical reforms all played their part in the development of church music, as much as sheer musical inspiration and ability-or the lack of it! The author is necessarily selective in the English composers be can deal with in a small space. The Wesleys, Walmisley, Parry and Stanford get fair mention. Others are referred to only briefly, or we are told that their 70 THE CHURCHMAN 'church music is best forgotten'. The final chapter is for the man in the pew, dealing with the hymns in his hand. What is a good hymn? What about the hymn of which 'many must have wearied at school, in church or in the armed forces'? The basic good sense of so much in this study is illustrated in Professor Hutchings' answers to these and similar questions. 'A good hymn is one that wears well, makes the simple folk enjoy its words and remember those words because of the musical appeal, yet is not found contemptible by the musically educated and half-educated.' And to that we can say Amen. T. 0. WALKER SUMMA THEOLOGIAE Thomas Aquinas VOL. 8: CREATION, VARIETY, AND EVIL (la. 44-49) Latin text edited, with English translation, by Thomas Gilby, OP Eyre & Spottiswoode. 177 pp. 42s. Of the 60 volumes planned for this valuable series this, No. 8 in the final order, is the 23rd to appear. The subjects discussed in this part of the Summa Theologiae include the significance of the term creation, the question of the eternity or the world, and the problem of the origin of evil. In the appendices, which are in general such a commendable feature of the books in this series, Fr. Gilby, though he acknowledges that Thomas Aquinas was 'perhaps over-ready to see Aristotle as more of a Christian than he really was' (p. 151}-a somewhat fatuous observation in so far as it relates to Aristotle, since he was not a Christian at all !-disappoints us by setting before us a typically scholastic argumentation in support of the concept of an everlasting world. The tortuous logic goes something like this: To claim that we might conceive of a creature God could not produce would be a disparagement of His omnipotence; if God so willed, there was no need for the efficient cause (the will of God) to precede its effect (the created order}; a complete cause and its effect exist simultaneously; but no completion is wanting to God's causality; 'hence, given that He is, He can always have had an effect, and therefore there is no must about His having to precede it in duration'; it was open to Him to will that 'what He has willed always was and never was not'; any priority implied is a 'priority of meaning' and not of sequence or duration. 'Clearly, then,' Fr. Gilby concludes, 'there is no contradiction in the assertion that an object both has been created by God and has ever existed' (pp. 153ff.}. To argue in these categories today can hardly fail to suggest that the thinking of the Church (or at any rate the Roman Catholic Church) is still held fast in the straitjacket of medievalism. Apart from the fact that temporality is inevitably involved in the concept of priority, this mode of rationalisation is as static as it is sterile. The amazing dynamism of the energy which forms the substructure or the heart of the material creation, unknown to Thomas but now beginning to be known by us, would seem to offer a much more fruitful line of in­ vestigation. Space does not permit any discussion here of the position maintained by Thomas that evil is the absence or privation of good; but this too BOOK REVIEWS 71 is an important question which has been reopened by Karl Barth in our day and which calls for fresh discussion, not least by evangelicals. PHILIP E. HUGHES

THE SUCCESSION NARRATIVE R. N. Whybray. SCM. 118 pp. 16s. The succession and narrative here studied is the story of how the throne of Israel passed from David to Solomon, in 2 Samuel9: 20 and 1 Kings 1: 2. These passages Whybray treats as a single entity: the Succession Narrative. In his Introduction, he appropriately emphasises the cultural flowering that distinguished the United Monarchy, and (like others) suggests that David obtained foreign (e.g., Egyptian) help when organising his enlarged kingdom, with consequent enrichment of Hebrew educational tradition. His starting-point is von Rad's treat­ ment of the Joseph and Succession Narratives as exemplifying a form of narrative wisdom-writing. In ch. 2 Whybray enquires into the possible nature of the Succession Narrative: history, novel, national epic, moral/ religious tale, or political propaganda? He opts for a novel, an historical novel, rather than historiography, in some detail (pp. 19-47), purpos­ ing to rally support for the Davidic dynasty in favour of Solomon, being written in the latter's early years (pp. 54-55). Inch. 3 Whybray emphasises the role of 'wisdom' in the Succession Narrative, and then in detail (pp. 78-95) argues directly for taking it as didactic literature (cf. von Radon the Joseph Narrative), exemplifying the teachings in Proverbs. In ch. 4 the political novel in Egypt and Israel, Whybray argues for Egyptian literature as part of the cultural heritage for the Succession Narrative, especially the Konigsnovelle texts as studied by A. Hermann. However, Herrmann's category is so wide and inade­ quately-definable that it nets any Egyptian text in which the king features and that shows any trace of literary consciousness. The 'genre' is so wide as to be imaginary. In any case, the term novel/ Novelle-in modern usage, a piece of entertaining fiction-is utterly unsuitable, especially in Egypt. This rather invalidates the frame­ work (but not all details) of Whybray's comparison of the Narrative with Egyptian works. Some of his detailed comparisons are interest­ ing, others are commonplace in the Ancient East. For the Instruction of Amenemhat 1, Whybray depends too heavily on the popular but erroneous view of de Buck that it was a posthumous work. In fact, its conspiracy hapj::ened before a ten-year co-regency of Amenemhat 1 and Sesostris 1, and so did not occasion Amenemhat's death. There are several useful features in this book, e.g. detailed study of various aspects of the Succession Narrative, and the fruitful comparison with wisdom-literature proper (Proverbs). However, the so-called Succes­ sion Narrative is an integral part of Samuel and Kings, and not an entity as we have it. Thus, separate treatment is open to some question. Many of the criteria for its being a historical novel would equally well apply to well-written historiography; too great a contrast is drawn between ancient and 'modern' historical writing. And it might be better to view the Narrative as exemplifying wisdom from real history rather than drawing characters to fit. As noted, some of 72 THE CHURCHMAN Whybray's Egyptian comparisons are useful, but his case here is weakened by inadequate special knowledge of Egyptian data. K. A. KITCHEN YAHWEH AND THE GODS OF CANAAN: A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF TWO CONTRASTING FAITHS W. F. Albright. Athlone Press. 250 pp. 50s. This book goes farther afield than its title suggests. It is the published form of a series of seven lectures delivered in London in 1965, appearing now in five chapters with the following headings: Verse and Prose in Early Israelite Tradition; The Patriarchal Back­ ground of Israel's Faith; Canaanite Religion in the Bronze Age; The Struggle between Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: The Religious Cultures of Israel and Phoenicia in Periodic Tension. One's initial reaction may be to feel that the author has covered most of this ground already in various writings; but this would be to reckon without his tireless pursuit of new material. To read Albright is to be run off one's feet, somewhat like Job in his encounter with omniscience; it is also to learn the value of constant openness to light from any quarter. There are plenty of bold pronouncements: we meet for example 'this translation, which is absolutely certain .. .',or 'this obviously correct view .. .'; but the reader knows that the author "'ill be the first to eat his words if fresh discovery discredits them. At one end of the Old Testament he will confess to his change of mind over patriarchal religion, which he used to regard as a retrojection from post-Mosaic times; at the other end he will tell of a whole series of his revised estimates of the date of Ecclesiastes, moving steadily back from the third century to the fifth. The same receptiveness to new or recon­ sidered evidence makes him independent of standard opinions. He reaffirms, for instance, his long-held conviction, in the light of Ugaritic verse forms, that the song of Miriam and Moses is 'the oldest Israelite poetry of any length' that we possess; and more recently the evidence from Qumran has convinced him (by the indications of variant textual traditions in the Old Testament) that the minute analysis of documents in Pentateuchal criticism is 'completely absurd'. This is not to say that he rejects the main outlines of that criticism; he has his own theory, suggested by the phenomena of the Yahwistic and Elohistic portions of the Psalter, and if it fails to achieve a convincing simplicity it at least avoids some of the old excesses. Most of the perennial Old Testament talking points are here: Apiru, bamoth, covenant, ephod, Moloch, nebi'im ...; it could be the whole alphabet, and in most cases there is some point illuminated from recent or still unpublished work within the vast range of the author's interests. It is a valuable, richly informative and stimulating piece of work; a wholly characteristic product of this great scholar. DEREK KIDNER THE CHURCH AND MAN'S STRUGGLE FOR UNITY Herbert W addams. Blandford. 268 pp. 36s. This is an interesting book because of its fresh view of church history. 'The idea that Christendom was once one great united BOOK REVIEWS 73 Church is a figment of the imagination. Much more the history of Christendom is a travailing in pain to bring forth the unity which its own gospel requires, an effort which has never reached its end and in which Christians are as much engaged today as they were in the past' (p. 102). Hence, 'the development of Christian unity is, historically speaking, a process which began with the Christian faith itself and is still in process of completion' (p. 31). But more than this, the ecu­ menical movement may be seen as part of man's wider quest for unity: it is 'a practical experiment in producing a new consciousness of world-wide unity' (p. 7). The book may he recommended to those who wish to pursue this approach further, but it is doubtful how far the author's material conforms to his argument. The Reformation, for example, is likely to appear tediously retrogressive. Other exertions are equally required of the Church by its own Gospel, and a description of church history as a quest for truth and holiness, as well as unity, might give a more balanced picture. The author certainly recognises the part played by the weakening of religious convictions in leading the churches closer to one another (pp. 219, 251). This is one of Blandford's Problems of History series, and takes its place alongside some much more circumscribed studies. Selection of material for such a wide-ranging discussion obviously involved some difficult decisions. The author's choice varies between being excellently in­ informative, especially on the Eastern churches, and reading like a school text-book. The information we are given is occasionally inaccurate (Mary, Queen of Scots, was Elizabeth's second-cousin, not half-sister, p. 166), and occasionally misleading (conflation of Justin and Hippolytus, p. 28). Conciseness is not achieved by telling us four times in three pages that Constantinople fell in 1453 (pp. 121-3). JOHN TILLER

A PLACE FOR YOU: PsYCHOLOGY AND RELIGION. Paul Tournier. SCM. 224 pp. 35s. Admirers of Tournier's earlier books will need no encouragement to buy his latest, and they will be delighted by it. This time he writes of the human need for security-the need to belong, the need to receive and to give, and the need for support. In the first part, he considers the problem of rootlessness, the biblical view of places, the changing world, and the way healing is to be found through professional scientific skill and personal contact. In the second part, he sets out the apparent contradiction between psychology with its emphasis on self-fulfilment, and religion with its emphasis on self-denial, and seeks to relate the two. In the third part, he deals with the need for human and divine support. There is here a great deal of insight into human nature-'I have treated many women, whose nervous anxiety was at bottom due to the fact that their husbands bad opted out of their position as head of the family'. There is, too, a profound understand­ ing of Scripture-'Several women have told me that they felt demeaned by the well-known biblical text: "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him" (Gen. 2: 18). It seems to me that it is the man who ought to feel humiliated at the thought that God considered him incapable of looking after himself on his own. 74 THE CHURCHMAN Personally I think that the divine thought . . . concerns women as well as man, and expresses the immense need for support that every human being feels'. A number of details are open to question-for instance his non-directive attitude illustrated by a man and his mistress. It is obviously right that one must not impose one's will on someone else, but does that absolve a Christian from making his Lord's teaching clear? Even in this and similar cases, Tournier provokes thought about the importance of the integrity of another's personality. D. L. E. BRONNERT JESUS: FOUR LENTEN TALKS A. C. Craig. BBC. 30 pp. 2s. 6d. THE MAN FOR US Hugh Bishop. BBC. 31 pp. 2s. 6d. These two paperbacks are the Lent and Holy Week talks respectively broadcast on Radio 4 this year, the first by a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and General Secretary of the BBC, and the second by the Father Superior of the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield. In both, real faith in the Person of Christ as revealed in the Gospels, is apparent; both present a real challenge to an unbelieving generation; both are intended for ordinary people of all levels of intelligence; but significantly, neither is willing to propound what Fr. Bishop calls 'a theory of the atonement'-in other words the Scriptural doctrine of it. Both appear in practice to be 'moral influence' theorists. Dr. Craig considers our Lord's Person under four headings-the records about him, the things he said and did, the death he died and the power he wields. He is refreshingly positive in his attitude to the Scriptures and our Lord's resurrection, and cautiously so with regard to his miracles. His writing is marked by a pithy and penetrating style. Father Bishop considers in turn various aspects of our Lord's true humanity and truly human experience from the events of Holy Week, presenting Jesus as the pattern or true Man for us, showing us the shape of life by his entry into glory through suffering; calling out the treachery of the religious; facing doubts and fear in Gethsemane; affirming faith unequivocally in the upper room; and displaying the invincibility of love in his death which was the only possible outcome of His true humanity, freedom and integrity. If Dr. Craig's work is more inclined to be academic and theoretical, Father Hugh's is definitely practical and more obviously and immediately relevant to everyday living. But both are a seed-bed of stimulating and profoundly challenging thoughts. ]. P. BAKER THE PATTERN OF NEW TESTAMENT TRUTH George Eldon Ladd. Eerdmans. 119 pp. $3.75. Dr. Ladd is an American Evangelical scholar whose writings have shown a keen concern to get to the heart of the New Testament message. His recent book Jesus and the Kingdom, despite one or two weaknesses, will undoubtedly be a standard textbook on the subject of the Kingdom of God for a long time to come. Here he takes us beyond the confines of the Synoptic Gospels and seeks to relate to each BOOK REVIEWS 75 other the main themes of three parts of the New Testament-the S,ynoptic Gospels, the Johannine and the Pauline writings. The longest chapter of the book is in fact the first one. In this he discusses the background of New Testament thought, comparing the Greek and Hebrew elements. He has of course read James Barr and is influenced but not overawed by him. He finds that there is a distinction between the Greek dualism of the visible and invisible worlds and the Hebrew religious dualism of God versus man. The Old Testament shows us a personal God who invades history to meet men in historical experience. The chapter on the Synoptics summarises the theme of his earlier book and contains a critique of Perrin's The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus and a rebuttal of a lengthy review of Jesus and the Kingdom by Perrin. When dealing with St. John, whose key theme is eternal life, Dr. Ladd finds a different emphasis from the Synoptics but no basic disagreement. Paul is shown to have a similar dualism to theirs with justification an eschatological event. While rather short, the book is a very useful treatment of the central truths of the New Testament. R. E. NIXON SEX AND SOCIETY: A NEW conE oF sEXUAL BEnAviouR Helena Wright. Allen & Unwin. 140 pp. 21s. This is not the kind of book that I would recommend to people contemplating marriage, or trying to find greater stability and happi­ ness within marriage. This is a pity as the author has, in the past, through books and interviews, helped a great many people in dealing with problems and difficulties found within marriage. The main argument of the book hinges around the fact that now we have methods of contraception which make unwanted pregnancies extremely unlikely, isn't it also time that we had a new code of sexual behaviour to allow people greater freedom? This new code, not introduced until page 90, has six principal points. Its main purpose is to allow people sufficient freedom to experiment sexually until they find their norm! The code does not exclude sex outside marriage, or homosexual relationships. In common with much modern thinking you solve whatever problems you have by running away from them, instead of facing up to the issues involved and seeking to find a way to overcome them. The book does point out the many pressing problems of know­ ing what to do with, and how to control, the sexual urge that man experiences. And we are all familiar with the disastrous consequences that uncontrolled sexual passions can lead to; but, a general loosening of moral standards of behaviour will do nothing to help people to find sexual freedom as suggested here. Sexual freedom demands the protection that marriage alone can give it. JOHN HALL PRIVACY: TnE RIGnT To BE LET ALONE M. L. Ernst & A. U. Schwartz. MacGibbon & Kee. 238 pp. 36s. A Briton visiting the United States will frequently notice that while superficially the moral standar~ accep~ed in the Uni~ed States are the same as in this country, yet m detail the emphasiS may be very different. There, for instance, cheating in a TV quiz game is a 76 THE CHURCHMAN national scandal, while the fact that in some cities the police can be bribed appears to be accepted without too much concern. It is perhaps characteristic of the American approach that the right of privacy should assume prominence: but let no one assume it is either an easy or an unimportant question. Should a manufacturer be allowed to use your photograph to advertise his goods without your permission? May friends commission and exhibit a bust of some deceased person without the leave of surviving relatives? May a Cinema newsreel show your photo, or a newspaper publish your life story, or someone write and publish your biography without your consent? And if the answer to some of the questions is 'yes'. and to others 'no', where should the law draw the line? Ernst and Schwartz start with English law before the Declaration of Independence, and guide us through a selection of US cases in order to show us the path that American courts have taken in this matter. Substantial quotations are given from various Court judgments, paraphrased where necessary to make the going reasonable for nonlawyers. Lawyers will therefore find the book inadequate for their purposes: while its concentration on US law will limit its appeal to readers elsewhere. H. R. M. CRAIG ARMY OF THE CHURCH Kathleen Heasman. Lutterworth Press. 180 pp. 5s. Kathleen Heasman has given us a workmanlike account of the first eighty years of the Church Army, starting with the conversion of the young business man Wilson Carlisle who, through a physical breakdown, took to his bed and there read of Jesus Christ. She shows how through D. R. Moody's Missions Carlisle learnt the techniques of evangelism and the part which music could play. (He played the harmonium for Sankey). His ambition was to reach the people the Church left untouched. Magic lantern, well-known hymns, varied instruments did not bring them in so he went to the open air. Carlisle is seen as a leader of men and perhaps a dictator. He was restless under mere Church routine. The Church Army he founded in 1882 carne up the hard way, and in one savage and brutal attack Carlisle himself just escaped with his life. Canterbury Convocation approved the Church Army in 1885. Parochial work is the backbone of the Church Army which over the years has always combined social concern with evan­ gelistic work. The book traces the changes in the Army's approach over the years and now with State welfare ever increasing this arm of the Church has constantly sought new avenues of service. The old days of Medical Missions and T.B. •Sanatoria have been replaced by provisions for holiday camps and old people's homes and latterly, care of drug-addicts. In 1945 the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides Associations agreed with the Church Army for badge work which would include definite religious teaching. The Church Army has spread to the United States and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, India and East Africa and the Caribbean. Everywhere it goes it takes the Gospel of jesus to the underprivileged and aims to improve their physical lot. One leaves this book with a sense of regret that the Church of England has never taken to heart the lessons that Carlisle learnt. While happy that one small band of enthusiasts should work BOOK REVIEWS 77 to communicate with the majority stratum of our society, we have been content that the mass of our activity remain inflexible, traditional and conventional. EDDY STRIDE AREAS OF ECUMENICAL EXPERIMENT: A SURVEY AND REPORT TO THE BRITISH COUNCIL OF CHURCHES R. M. C. Jeffrey. British Council of Churches. 82 pp. 6s. This report reviews what is happening in a number of 'areas of ecumenical experiment' and also considers some of the problems encountered in, and issues raised by, such experiments. Some of its subject matter aims at assisting the setting up of further 'ecum­ enical parishes': and there are notes at the end of each chapter and an annotated bibliography to assist further study. The book is not easy to read, since like so many other 'ecumenical' publications it is liberally laced with (often clumsily worded) quotations from other ecumenical works, from books, from letters, but rarely from Holy Scripture. None the less it ought to be read, if only so that more may know the type of experiment which is being carried out, the extent of such experiments, and the atmosphere in which they are being con­ ducted. The Sections on theology will convince few, and disturb many. 'Some theological thinking appears ... too abstract .... In no other science would conclusions be reached without experiment­ ation.' The assumption that where laity show little enthusiasm for these schemes it is of necessity the laity who require 'education' may seem a little pathetic. The Section on the place of the Established Church, and some of the references to intercommunion, are unaccept­ able. Both Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics may well wonder after reading this book whether these experiments have not gone far enough, and on the wrong lines, for the Church to reappraise the whole situation, and to seek reunion by better, more logical, and more loyal ways. H. R. M. CRAIG ONE OF OUR PRIESTS IS MISSING W. ]. Weatherby. Wiedenfeld & Nicholson. 225 pp. 25s. This is a novel about an elderly Roman Catholic priest who has recently been ordered, after years of happy missionary work in West Africa, to serve a down-at-heel parish in a Liverpool-type port full of immigrants. The story opens with the police sending for him to winkle out a gin-toting Negro from a public library. By loosely­ connected incidents revolving partly around race-relations and partly round what might be termed curate-relations, the reader watches the weary priest's decline. As a novel the book is indifferent. The plot hardly hangs together, the title belies hopes of some sort of thriller, most of the characters are obviously types rather than real people. What it does, however, is to provide an alarming and rather disappoint­ ing insight into the low level of spirituality which the author, evidently a sympathetic churchman himself, takes for granted as normal in a Roman Catholic parish. Confession appears to be an easy salve for the conscience of these, e.g. prostitutes, who live neither virtuously nor godlily nor intend to. Penance is a pathetic rigmarole. Curates are sent to the wretched priest without even a preliminary mutual look- 78 THE CHURCHMAN over. The priest surreptitiously but regularly snoops every line of the curate's private diary, and so on. To any Anglican reader who is interested in Anglo-Roman relations the book is a gloomy piece of work-unless Mr. Weatherby's Roman clergy are as far from usual as Mr. Alec Waugh's Anglicans. JOHN POLLOCK THE DRAMA OF THE PSALMS Donald Anders-Rickards. DLT. 118 pp. 12s. 6d. This book is intended as an appetiser and advertiser, not simply for the Psalms as such, but for the liturgical approach to them. For this, the author has the enthusiasm and gusto that may well catch the imagination of his readers and get them to take a new look at this old material. To this extent it is a pleasing and useful piece of work. But it is far from reliable. For the most part is is a paean for 'pattemism', presenting the cultic drama together with all the details that embellished it in the early writings of this school, from the people's simulation of the waves of the sea to the sacral king's humbling and benighting and his subsequent enthronement as the surrogate of Yahweh. All is most graphically described, but qualified by only half-hearted indica­ tions of the extremity of the views it advocates. It is also guilty at times of curious slips: there is a remark on p. 18 which implies that the Persian period ended in 540 BC, and another on p. 30 which seems to discount the Old Testament as a primary source on the Israelite cultus. In all, a lively book but a wild one. DEREK KIDNER A MINISTRY RENEWED Gordon E. Harris. SCM. 125 pp. 9s. 6d. This is a stimulating and provocative book, worth reading by any minister and by many a layman. The author is a minister in the Presbyterian Church of England who after twelve years in its service was on the point of leaving the ministry, but was kept from doing so. He tells how theology, and indeed Christianity, 'came alive' for him as a result of a course of training in 'pastoral counselling', apparently along the lines of the 'clinical theology' type of psychotherapy. Until recently he was minister of a church in the slums of Stepney. He is constitutionally a rebel, and theologically something of a radical, 'though unquestionably a deeply committed Christian and certainly not a "crackpot"'. The result of his own experience, observation and meditation is this little book about the nature and function of the ministry in the church of God. He writes with considerable biblical insight at times, although at others it is painfully apparent that he has not rightly understood the Gospel, and is interpreting Scripture in his own 'peculiar' way. Nowhere is this more evident than in his repeated application of the term 'the principalities and powers' to everything but what the NT means by its use of the term. However, Mr. Harris writes with considerable insight into human nature and into the current sociological background against which the church is called to fulfil its mission. The fact that about half of the book is an undis­ guised plea for the recognition of the contribution that psychotherapy, and to a lesser extent sociology, can make to the equipment of the minister for his work, should not deter anyone from reading it. Unlike BOOK REVIEWS 79 some of the 'lunatic fringe' radicals who have written on this topic, Mr. Harris has not allowed psychotherapy to replace the grace of God, although at times his idea of what exactly is the work and preaching of the Gospel appears somewhat confused. He has some excellent things to say about the relation between minister and congregation, and on the conduct of congregational life. Few Christians would not profit by reading this book. Your reviewer enjoyed it. J. P. BAKER THE MARK OF CAIN S. Barton Babbage. Paternoster 157 pp. 6s. Twenty years ago it would have been almost inconceivable for a conservative evangelical publisher to have brought out a book on the theological implications of contemporary fiction. This is what the Paternoster Press have now do'le. Dr. Babbage, who is visiting professor at a theological seminary in the United States, takes a look at some of the themes which recur in Hemingway, Sartre, William Golding, Kafka, Faulkner, Arthur Miller and others. It is not hard to draw up a list of themes which looks like an extract from the index to a theological textbook: loss of innocence, alienation, fear of death, sense of sin. Dr. Babbage devotes a chapter to each of these and other concepts, including the one which gives the book its title and typifies the agony in much modern literature, the mark of Cain: in Cain occurs 'the conflict between the passionate claim to be left alone, the assertion of independence, and the no less passionate terror of being left alone, the obscure foreboding of the hell to which independence leads'. Over the past twenty years several studies of this kind have appeared. It is a welcome development, symptomatic of the increasing involvement by Christians in the literary trends of the age. There is nothing strikingly new in Dr. Babbage's book. Its interest is mainly in its collection of material from a wide range of modern novels. This is also its weakness, for the author's own themes tend to be overwhelmed by the mass of quotations with which they are illustrated. However, although one would have preferred Dr. Babbage to be more constructively critical and less derivative, one cannot but welcome any book of this kind from the pen of a conservative evangelical and hope that it encourages readers to go to the originals from which the quotations are taken. DEREK TAYLOR THOMPSON

Book Briefs Hardback Controversy: The Birth Control Debate 1958-1968 by A. Valsecchi, Chapman, 235 pp., 35s., is translated from Italian and is a comprehen­ sive account of the recent debate. The Elizabethans by R. D. Lobban, University of London Press, 64 pp., lOs. 6d. is an attractive illustrated brief pen picture designed mainly for the younger reader. Faith and Spiritual Life by Y. Congar, DLT, 214 pp., 32s. 6d., contains a collection of articles translated from the French grouped round the communion of the saints and the spiritual life. Daily Bible Readings from the RSV, 80 THE CHURCHMAN Marshalls, 128 pp., lOs. 6d., is self-explanatory with each section being a paragraph or two long. Sermons for Today 1 Ministers and 2 Laymen, Marshalls, 128 pp., 17s. 6d., each contains selected sermons from British and American preachers. Does God still Guide? by J. Sidlow Baxter, Marshalls, 191 pp., 35s., is a study of guidance by a veteran biblical expositor. The Wit and Wisdom of Billy Graham compiled by B. Adler, World's Work, 155 pp., 21s., gives classified statements from the American evangelist. The Life and Teaching of Jesus according to the Gospels by E. R. Lewis, Mowbrays, 208 pp., 15s., is a textbook for schools based on the Gospels and designed to stimulate pupils. How to run a conference by M. Bieber, Allen & Unwin, 124 pp., 21s., is a handy manual on organising business conferences, but has its relevance to church conferences which are not likely to be so highpowered. Layman's Answer by E. M. Blaiklock, Hodders, 160 pp., 21s., is an answer at a simple level to the sort of radicalism Professor Geering has been propounding in New Zealand. It is all rather hum-drum after John Robinson, and the New Zealand controversy seems to have been on a more superficial if more dramatic level. Act of Love by Rosemary Haughton, Chapman, 191 pp., 25s., is an RC study of conversion in history, biography and contemporary life. My Call to the Ministry, ed. C. A. Joyce, Marshalls, 124 pp., 17s. 6d., contains sixteen testimonies, which are useful as far as they go but rather lack an introductory essay on what is understood by the ministry in today's state of flux. Cruden's Compact Concordance, Marshalls, 563 pp., 21s., is a useful reissue with bold page heads, but the original older type is rather too compact and too battered for ease of reading. Obedience and the Church by Karl Rahner and others, Chapman, 250 pp., 30s., is a symposium investigat­ ing a very basic religious question for Romans as well as other Chris­ tians. A Leopard Tamed by E. Vandevort, Hodders, 218 pp., 30s., is a lively missionary story set in East Africa and concerns a small boy who helped the author, a lady missionary from America, and is now a native pastor. The Text of the NT: its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration by B. M. Metzger, OUP, 284 pp. and 16 plates, 45s., is a second edition of an important work which first appeared in 1964. Professor Metzger has updated it mainly by a mass of detailed references to recent publications added at the end of the book. The English Church and the Papacy by Z. N. Brooke, CUP, 260 pp., 45s., is a straight reprint of a much older volume which first came out in 1931. Brooke is firmly on the Maitland side of the famous Stubbs-Maitland dispute, believing that in the period he covers (William the Conqueror to John} England followed the pattern of Europe in church law. He bases his conclusion on manuscripts, catalogues and contemporary quotations. This is an important book, but it is not the last word, and only recently Dr. Gray of Belfast has put some question marks against the Maitland thesis. Behold the Man by N. Micklem, Bles, 157 pp., 21s., is a recon­ struction of John's Gospel based on a hypothetical separation between John the Apostle and John the writer. The Power of the Provisional by R. Schutz, Hodders, 80 pp., 16s., is a Taize ecumenical study. The Singing Church by C. H. Phillips, Faber, 288 pp., 63s., is a revision by the Professor of Music at Exeter University of an established work on church singing. It is a standard reference work.